Robert Vadra ducked questions on ties with UK-based arms consultant Sanjay Bandari: ED Sources (Lead)

New Delhi, July 14 (IANS) Robert Vadra, husband of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, was evasive in answering ED questions on his alleged financial association with UK-based arms consultant Sanjay Bandari and his family members, sources said on Monday.

Summoned in connection with a money laundering case registered in 2016, Vadra was non-cooperative during his two-hour questioning and failed to answer questions on two London property deals, said sources.

Vadra, accompanied by his wife, reached the ED office in central Delhi around noon and left almost two hours later, without giving any statement to mediapersons.

The businessman, son-in-law of Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, has denied any wrongdoing in his repeated appearances before the ED.

On several earlier occasions, Vadra has hit out at the ED for harassing him by calling him on several occasions despite his stand that he has nothing new to share with them.

The ED has alleged that the two properties in question are benami properties of Vadra, which he acquired in collusion with UK-based arms consultant Sanjay Bhandari.

The two London properties are at Grosvenor Hill Court, 13, Bourdon Street, and 19, Bryanston Square. The ED treats them as proceeds of crime related to a money laundering case registered in 2016.

The ED alleged that Vadra lived in the Bryanston Square property on a few occasions during his London visits.

The properties under the ED's lens drew attention after investigators sniffed benami deals between Vadra and Bhandari.

The investigation agency alleged that Bhandari renovated a property in London in 2009 using funds provided by Vadra.

Earlier on July 5, Bhandari was declared a fugitive economic offender by a Delhi Court, a development which came within months of a British court’s refusal to extradite him to India.

Bhandari, 62, who fled to the UK in 2016, was declared a fugitive economic offender under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018, paving the way for the probe agency to attach his assets.

The ED filed a chargesheet against Bhandari in 2020 based on proceedings initiated against him by the Income Tax department under the anti-black money law.

Bhandari was accused of concealing overseas assets, making false statements to suppress information about overseas assets and using backdated documents.

--IANS

rch/dan