A Delhi court on Friday allowed Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, to travel abroad for business purposes. Vadra is facing probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) related to purchase of alleged illegal assets abroad.
Special judge Arvind Kumar granted permission to Vadra to travel to Spain and other European countries from September 21 to October 8.
The ED case against Vadra relates to allegations of money laundering in the purchase of a London-based property, located at 12, Bryanston Square and worth 1.9 million pounds, which is allegedly owned by the businessman in a “benami” way.
Vadra has denied the allegation of possessing illegal foreign assets and termed it a political witch-hunt against him. He has said he is being “hounded and harassed” to subserve political ends.
The agency has questioned Vadra several times and has opposed Vadra’s plea to travel abroad. On April 1 Vadra was directed by the court to not to leave the country without prior permission by the Delhi court which had granted him conditional anticipatory bail.
Investigators claim that Robert Vadra, directly or indirectly, owns nine properties in London cumulatively worth around 12 million pounds. Three of these are villas, the rest, luxury flats. All these were purchased between 2005 and 2010, when the UPA government was in power.