Robert Vadra skips ED summons second time

Robert Vadra skipped his scheduled deposition before the Enforcement Directorate for the second time in a money laundering case. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Robert Vadra, a businessman and the husband of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, skipped his scheduled deposition before the Enforcement Directorate for the second time in a money laundering case linked to U.K.-based arms consultant Sanjay Bhandari, official sources said on Tuesday (June 17, 2025).

He was asked to appear on Tuesday (June 17, 2025) after he failed to do so on June 10.

Sources close to Mr. Vadra said he has communicated his travel plan to the UAE and U.K. for this week in advance to the agency and that he would join the probe once he is back in India.

He skipped the June 10 summons saying he had flu-like symptoms on June 9 and had undertaken a COVID test as per protocol.

His lawyer had then said that Mr. Vadra had no intention of avoiding summons and was ready to appear before the ED anytime before or after his travel abroad later this month.

The agency is understood to be summoning Mr. Vadra to record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and subsequently file a chargesheet in the case.

The federal probe agency had questioned the businessman for three consecutive days in April in a separate money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in a 2008 land deal in Haryana. He is being investigated in three money laundering cases by the ED.

Mr. Bhandari (63) fled to London in 2016, soon after the Income Tax Department raided him in Delhi.

A U.K. court earlier this month refused an application filed by the Indian government seeking permission to appeal in Britain’s Supreme Court against the discharge of Mr. Bhandari in an extradition case, virtually ruling out chances of him being brought to the country to face the law.

The ED filed a chargesheet in this case in 2023, alleging that Mr. Bhandari acquired the 12, Bryanston Square house in London in 2009 and got it renovated “as per the directions of Robert Vadra, who provided the funds for the renovation”.

Mr. Vadra has denied that he owns any London property directly or indirectly.

Terming the charges a “political witch hunt”, Mr. Vadra said he was being “hounded and harassed” to subserve political ends.

The ED is also investigating Vadra in a separate money laundering case linked to alleged financial irregularities in a land deal in Rajasthan’s Bikaner.