ED files chargesheet against Robert Vadra in UK-based Sanjay Bhandari

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate has filed a chargesheet against businessman Robert Vadra, husband of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, in a money laundering case linked to UK-based arms consultant Sanjay Bhandari, officials said.

The supplementary prosecution complaint has been filed before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court here, they said.

The case has been listed for cognisance proceedings on December 6, the officials said.

This is the second money laundering chargesheet against Vadra. In July, he was chargesheeted by the ED in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in a land deal in Haryana’s Shikohpur.

Vadra, 56, has been questioned by the ED in the Bhandari-linked case in the past.

There was no immediate response from Vadra or his legal team.

Bhandari, whose extradition request has been turned down by a UK court, was declared a fugitive economic offender by a Delhi court in July.

The 63-year-old arms consultant fled to London in 2016 soon after the Income-Tax department raided him in Delhi.

The ED filed a criminal case against Bhandari and others under the PMLA in February 2017, taking cognisance of the I-T department chargesheet filed against him under the anti-black money law of 2015.

The agency earlier filed two chargesheets in his case in 2020 and 2023 even as it has been probing Bhandari’s links with Vadra related to a house located in London.

In the second supplementary chargesheet filed in this case in 2023, the ED alleged that Bhandari “acquired” the 12, Bryanston Square house located in London in 2009 and got it renovated “as per the directions of Robert Vadra and the funds for renovation were provided by Robert Vadra”.

Vadra has denied that he owned any London property directly or indirectly. Terming these charges a political witch hunt against him, he has said that he was being “hounded and harassed” to subserve political ends.