Congress alleges Dhingra report leaked, Khattar denies

New Delhi/Chandigarh, April 29: The Congress on Friday accused the central and the Harya governments of “deliberately leaking” the Dhingra Commission report despite a court injunction against its publication. Harya Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar rubbished the allegation. Accusing the government of acting with a sense of vendetta, Congress spokesperson Abishek Manu Singhvi also told reporters in New Delhi that Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, as also former Harya Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had not received any notices from the commission and termed the report “null and void”.

“Some very strange things are happening. I can understand a government — both central and state — and a ruling party which is steeped in vendetta and blinded by rage deliberately leaking the so-called Dhingra Commission report,” he said.

He said the Punjab and Harya High Court had issued injunctions against publication of this report and if “anyone published the report then it is a matter of contempt of court”. The one-man Justice S.N. Dhingra Commission of Inquiry, set up by the Khattar government in May 2015, had submitted its 182-page report on August 31 last year.

However, Khattar rubbished claims of the leak. “Copy of the report was submitted to the Supreme Court in a sealed cover. The court will take cognisance of this matter. There has been no leakage but if at all, it is established, it will be a matter for probe,” he told media in Chandigarh.

Meanwhile, Singhvi, asked about Sonia Gandhi’s daughter and Vadra’s wife Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s statement to the media on Thursday, said it is self-explatory. “I am not going to add or subtract from it a word. It stands as it is...She has given you the answers because she feels pained,” he said. Priyanka on Thursday said that agricultural land bought by her in Harya’s Faridabad district or other property acquired by her had no links to finces of her husband, his Skylight Hospitality or real estate major DLF.

However, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that a public clarification issued by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra about her land deals raises more questions than it answers. “Only one inference can be drawn from Priyanka’s statement — perhaps she was advised this is too hot a potato to be handled and, therefore, her transactions must be segregated and a clarification issued,” Prasad said on TimesNow channel.

“... her clarification raises more questions than it answers,” he added.  Prasad said “certain patterns” are similar in the land deals of both Priyanka and Robert Vadra. “One, the land is transferred back to the vendor in both cases; and secondly, the appreciation of the land is enormous”.  “Given the influence Robert Vadra exercised with the then (Hooda) government and the speedy manner in which land use was changed after bypassing norms, it can be inferred that it was designed to allow a situation of windfall gains,” Prasad said.

A report in the Economic Times on Thursday said that the Dhingra Commission has reportedly concluded that Vadra made unlawful profits of Rs 50.5 crore from a land deal in Harya in 2008 without spending a single paisa. (IANS)