''Process of cancelling land rights granted to Vadra’s firm started''

Chandigarh, September 19

The Haryana government has begun the process of cancelling the licence given to Robert Vadra’s Sky Light Hospitality to develop land that was later transferred to realty major DLF for Rs 58 crore, officials said on Thursday.

Director of the state’s Town and Country Planning Department KM Pandurang said the procedural formalities to cancel the licence had been completed keeping in with provisions of the Haryana Development and Regulation and Urban Areas Act, 1975. The formalities include serving notices on the coloniser and giving it an opportunity to be heard.

“We have to follow procedure of cancellation which we are following and the formalities have been completed. We gave them notice and hearing opportunity, which has concluded. Now, we have to take a decision and that process is on,” he said.

Pandurang said the mutation of the land was set aside by the then director general, consolidation of holdings in 2012, thus affecting the title of the land.

“There were issues regarding title of the land,” he said.

The 1991-batch IAS officer Ashok Khemka had shot to limelight in 2012 when he had cancelled the mutation of the land deal between Skylight Hospitality and the DLF.

A year ago, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar while responding to a question on the issue, had said that the licence of the piece of land in Gurugram’s Sector 83 which was sold to Skylight Hospitality and then transferred to DLF was “deemed to have lapsed”.

The licence for the land parcel had not been renewed, Khattar had then said.

The BJP has alleged that there were irregularities in the land deal involving Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, during the term of the previous Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in the state.

The 3.5 acres were alleged to have been bought for Rs 7.5 crore by Vadra’s company and later sold to DLF for Rs 58 crore after getting a licence to develop a colony. PTI