Why probe into Vadra-DLF land deal 'slow': IAS officer Ashok Khemka

Chandigarh: Senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka on Saturday questioned the "slow" progress in the probe into alleged irregularities in land deals during the erstwhile Congress government in Haryana.

"Why is the investigation into the Vadra-DLF deal slow? It has been 10 years. How much more to wait. The Dhingra Commission report is also in cold storage. Sinners are having a good time.

"Why is the ruler's intention weak? The promise made by the prime minister to the country in 2014 should be remembered," Khemka, the 1991-batch Haryana-cadre officer, said in a post on X in Hindi.

In 2012, Khemka hit the headlines after he had cancelled the mutation of the 3.5-acre land deal between Skylight Hospitality -- a company linked to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra -- and the realty major DLF in Gurugram's Manesar-Shikohpur.

Mutation is part of the land transfer process. He had also accused the Haryana government of victimising him then.

Khemka at that time was the director general, consolidation of holdings and land records.

In 2012, Bhupinder Singh Hooda was the chief minister of Haryana.

Notably, the Bharatiya Janata Party had alleged irregularities in land deals during the then Congress regime in Haryana and made it a major poll issue in the 2014 Lok Sabha as well as assembly elections.

The Congress, Hooda and Vadra have always denied any wrongdoing.

The BJP, after winning the Haryana assembly polls in 2014, had set up a commission of inquiry under Justice S N Dhingra (retired) in 2015 to probe issues pertaining to grant of commercial licence to Skylight.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court, however, on January 10, 2019, had quashed the report of the Dhingra commission of inquiry, citing procedural irregularities and restrained the government from making it public.