In its chargesheet against businessman Robert Vadra, the husband of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, in connection with its money laundering investigation in a 2008 deal for a 3.53-acre plot in Gurgaon’s Shikohpur village, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) claimed that Vadra had put the “entire onus” for this deal on three deceased persons close to him – Mahesh Nagar, H L Pahwa and Rajesh Khurana
The ED filed the chargesheet against Vadra and other accused before a special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering) court in Delhi last month.
Vadra’s office then issued a statement saying that “the present proceedings were nothing more than an extension of the political witch hunt by the present government against Mr Vadra”. It added, “As a law-abiding Indian citizen, Mr Vadra has always and will continue to extend his fullest cooperation to the authorities and he is confident that at the end of it all, the truth will prevail and he will be cleared of any wrongdoing.”
The three deceased Vadra “associates” had been real-estate dealers in Gurugram, Rajasthan, Delhi and other adjoining belts.
Mahesh Nagar
Mahesh Nagar died at the age of 55 in March this year after battling lung cancer for a long period. He was admitted to Medanta hospital, Gurgaon, for treatment for several days before he passed away. Vadra had visited him a few weeks before his demise to check on his health, sources said.
In 2018, the ED had conducted multiple raids at Mahesh’s residence and office premises in Gurgaon and Faridabad. Mahesh’s brother Lalit Nagar was then Congress MLA from the Tigaon constituency in Haryana’s Faridabad. Lalit lost to the BJP’s Rajesh Nagar in October 2024 state Assembly polls.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Lalit said, “What can I say why he (Robert Vadra) is taking the names of three who have passed away. Only he can say why he is doing it. All three (Mahesh Nagar, H L Pahwa and Rajesh Khurana) used to deal in real-estate in Delhi, Gurgaon and NCR, but I can not say anything beyond that. I don’t know anything about it.”
H L Pahwa
In December 2023, the ED named Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in its supplementary prosecution complaint against a UAE-based NRI C C Thampi, said to be known to Vadra, in connection with a money laundering case against arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari.
In that prosecution complaint, akin to a chargesheet, a Delhi-based real-estate agent H L Pahwa’s name surfaced for his financial transactions with Priyanka. The ED alleged that Priyanka had purchased five acres of land from Pahwa in Faridabad in April 2006. She had then sold the same land back to Pahwa in 2010, as per the agency.
The ED said that Thampi, who was arrested by the ED in 2020, had bought 486 acres of land in Amirpur village of Faridabad between 2005 and 2008 through Pahwa. Robert Vadra had also purchased 40.08 acres of land from Pahwa in the same area in 2005-2006 and sold it back to him five years later, the ED alleged.
Although both Vadra and Priyanka were named by the ED in this chargesheet, they were not named as “accused” in the case.
On March 3, 2008, Congress leader and Priyanka’s brother Rahul Gandhi bought 6.4 acres of land in Hassanpur village in Haryana’s Palwal from Pahwa by paying Rs 26.47 lakh through cheque, sources said. On July 26, 2012, he gifted the same land to Priyanka through a registered gift deed, who in turn gifted it to Vipassana Sadhna Sansthan on August 12, 2014.
Rajesh Khurana
Rajesh Khurana’s name came to the fore in Robert Vadra’s Bikaner land deals in Rajasthan, sources said. In 2020, the ED had alleged that Vadra’s Skylight Hospitality firm had bought lands in Gajner and Goyalri (Bikaner) for Rs 72 lakh in 2010 and sold them for Rs 5.15 crore to Allegeny Finlease (P) Ltd in 2012, generating a Rs 4.43 crore profit. The money, the ED alleged, was used by Vadra’s company to purchase a house in Delhi’s Sukhdev Vihar, which was attached by the agency for being “direct proceeds of crime” of the Bikaner land “scam”.
Vadra had then told the ED about those land deals that he had seen the land on “Google Map” as shown by Mahesh Nagar and Rajesh Khurana, sources said. He was also said to have claimed that it was Rajesh Khurana who checked all the documents on his behalf when the Bikaner land-deals were struck.
Vadra’s companies had entered into multiple real-estate deals between 2010 and 2012 in Rajasthan. In 2015, the ED had registered a case under the PMLA pertaining to suspicious land transfers in several areas of Rajasthan. In 2017, the then BJP-led Rajasthan government referred the case to the CBI that registered multiple FIRs against several entities including Vadra’s firms alleging illegal purchase of 275 bighas of land in Bikaner.