Hooda fails in bid to block report on Dhingra probe into land deals

Hours later, Priyanka: source of funds for my land not linked to Vadra or DLF

FORMER HARYANA Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda Thursday failed in his bid to get the Punjab and Haryana High Court to issue an order restraining The Economic Times from purportedly publishing the contents of the Justice S N Dhingra report on alleged irregularities in allotment of land licences in Gurgaon.

Hooda withdrew his plea after the court said it had no jurisdiction in the matter.

Among the deals scrutinised by the Dhingra Commission were those related to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra, his company Skylight Hospitality and real estate major DLF.

On September 1, 2016, The Indian Express had reported that the Dhingra Commission, constituted by the Haryana government in May 2015 to probe grant of commercial licences in four villages of Gurgaon to real estate companies, including M/s Skylight Hospitality, had found “gross procedural irregularities in allotment of licences”.

Hours after the court turned down Hooda’s plea, Vadra’s wife Priyanka Gandhi Vadra issued a statement that the source of funds for the land she bought and sold in Faridabad “has no relationship whatsoever with Shri Robert Vadra’s finances and/or Skylight Hospitality and no relationship whatsoever with DLF.”

Hooda, the Congress leader from Rohtak, is being probed by the state vigilance department