The land in Amipur village The land in Amipur village

An investigation by the Headlines Today reveals that Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra violated land rules in Haryana to acquire lands and then resell at a premium.Amipur village - 30 km from Delhi - in Haryana has turned out to be a happy hunting ground for Vadra because bountiful land in the village has been sold dirt cheap and then resold at a premium.It's in Amipur that Vadra struck four land deals with one seller - Harbans Lal Pahwa. In total, the Vadras bought 46 acres of land at Amipur village in Faridabad, only to sell it back to Pahwa at a premium.The deals were in direct violation of the Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972.Investigations by Headlines Today show how the money was circulating in the garb of legal land deals.First, on Sept 8, 2005, Robert Vadra bought 12 acres of land in Faridabad's Amipur village from Harbans Lal Pahwa. The cost of the land was over Rs 32 lakh. On April 14, 2006, Vadra bought 10 more acres of land from the same land dealer for Rs 30 lakh. On January 30 the same year Vadra bought another 19 acres in Amipur village from Harbans Lal Pahwa. This time the cost was Rs 54 lakh. On April 28, 2006 Vadra's wife Priyanka Gandhi struck a deal with Pahwa buying 5 acres in Amipur village for Rs 15 lakh.The deals are in violation of law as 46 acres of land bought by Vadras are much higher than the maximum land holdings sanctioned under the Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972. The Act states that permissible area that can be possessed by one person or his family is a maximum of 26.9 acres of agricultural land."The ownership of the land beyond permissible limits vests in the hands of the state government. The surplus land has to be distributed among Dalits and poor," clarifies Anupam Gupta, a lawyer from Chandigarh. Therefore, the extra 20 acres in possession of Vadra belonged to the government.What is raising eyebrows is not just the violation of the Land Ceiling Act, but the curious manner in which Vadra sold the land back to the original seller.Less than five years later, the buyer becomes the seller and the seller turns into the buyer. The entire 46 acres was bought by the land dealer Pahwa, in three instalments and at double the price.Headlines Today spoke to former director of the RBI, Vipin Malik who has been handling high profile tax cases. Malik says there's more to the land deals than what meets the eye. "You are buying from agriculturist and doing transaction between the two and making huge surpluses for self running into crores of rupees where you don't have your money. The money is being lent by the same person who is buying it and who is selling it back to you. So, this is a clear case of fictitious and fake transactions. This is cold cash cover up."The question is what is the connection between Harbans Lal Pahwa and Robert Vadra who are involved in the strange transaction of buying and selling to each other?The jigsaw fell in place as the Headlines Today Special Investigation Team unearthed Pahwa's link with Vadra's business empire.While going through Vadra's balance sheets Headlines Today stumbled upon a curious figure of Rs 1,55,00,000 and once again the name of Harbans Lal Pahwa came to the fore.Documents in possession with Headlines Today show Pahwa's company, Carnival Intercontinental Estate Pvt Ltd, had given a loan of Rs 1,55,00,000 to Vadra's company, Skylight Hospitality. Pahwa also held directorship in Vadra's company, Real Earth, for over a year between February 18, 2008 to March 23, 2009.Headlines Today tried to track down Pahwa at his residence in Gurgaon. We met Pahwa's son Gulshan who denied any knowledge of the land deals entered into by his father and Robert Vadra. He refused to allow us to confront his father claiming he was suffering from some grave illness.