Govt auditor pulls up Haryana for 'undue favours' to Robert Vadra

"Undue favours" to builders, including Robert Vadra's Skylight Hospitality, by the Haryana government during the Congress regime has come under attack from the Comptroller and Auditor General.

In its report for the year 2013-14, tabled in the Haryana assembly on Wednesday, the official auditor has come down heavily on the town and country planning department.

"....the department neither at the time of granting in-principle approval nor at the time of formal approval for transfer of licenses ensured that net profit beyond 15 per cent of the total cost accrues to public exchequer. This enabled the developers to earn huge profits merely by selling the land while the government had to forego sizeable amount," the CAG report said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party and other Congress rivals had trained their guns on the previous Bhupinder Singh Hooda government accusing it of showing favours to Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, in his land deal with realty giant DLF.

Though the report did not name Vadra, his company, Skylight Hospitality, was named.  Skylight Hospitality, the report noted, sold a prime 3.5 acre piece of land in Manesar in Gurgaon district to DLF in 2008 for Rs 58 crore.

Earlier, senior Indian Administrative Service officer Ashok Khemka had ordered the scrapping of the land deal, terming it as illegal. However, the previous Hooda government gave clean chit to Vadra in the land deal.

Image: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra