Twist in DLF-Vadra land deal: Crucial papers related to deal missing from Government records

Chandigarh, Dec 19: The two crucial pages from the file containing details of Robert Vadra-DLF land deal, are missing.

This came to light after whistleblower IAS officer Ashok Khemka filed an RTI query seeking a copy of that file. Khemka was the director general (consolidation) when the deal was cancelled.

The file dealt with a committee which was set up by previous Haryana Government to examine whether Khemka had rights to cancel the mutation of the DLF-Vadra deal.

The committee had later given clean chit to the deal and chargesheeted Khemka for misconduct.

Responding to Khemka's RTI application, State Public Information Officer in an affidavit said, "The undersigned made many efforts to trace out page no. 1 and 2 of the noting of the official file, but could not trace the pages. Hence, the pages could not be provided to the appellant."

Demanding that a case be registered in the matter, Khemka said, "it is a serious matter and it should be probed...how can the notings suddenly be untraceable".

"The file noting is a very important piece of record which would establish that the three members were specifically appointed to an illegally constituted Committee by the then political executive, where the only remedy to an aggrieved party was to file a writ petition in High Court, with the pre-determined objective to accord clean chit to black-marketing of colony license by M/s Skylight Hospitality, a company belonging to Robert Vadra, and to discredit my action of cancelling the land mutation from M/s Skylight Hospitality to M/s DLF," Khemka charged in a letter on Thursday to the Haryana Chief Secretary.

The 48-year-old IAS officer, whose action to cancel the mutation in October 2012 had raised a political storm, had sought the documents to ascertain how the official committee, which later on gave clean chit to Vadra, was constituted.

The Chief Secretary on his part said that it was a fact that a page of the file was missing. "This is a fact that one page of the file is missing, which is two numbers - 1 and 2. I have seen this filed today itself and this page is missing. For this we are instituting an inquiry...if somebody is guilty, we will take action," he said.

OneIndia News

(With agency inputs)