Days after activist Arvind Kejriwal levelled allegations against Robert Vadra and barely two days prior to AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Jalandhar, INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala on Wednesday alleged that both Rahul and Vadra had purchased land in Haryana at a rate much below the prevailing market price and also evaded stamp duty.

Chautala said that Vadra purchased around 30 acres of land from Dalits, which was allotted to them in 1981 after Consolidation, and as per law this land could be transferred only to a Dalit. He demanded a probe by a sitting Supreme Court judge into all dubious sale deeds in Haryana during the Congress tenure.

While distributing copies of sale deeds of Rahul’s land purchases at a press conference here on Wednesday, the former Haryana chief minister said that the sale deed was executed in the names of Rahul and Vadra in Palwal district at the rate of Rs 4 lakh per acre in March 2008 while the government had fixed Rs 6 lakh per acre collector rate at that time.

According to the sale deed distributed by Chautala, Rahul purchased 51 kanal and 13 marla (around 6.5 acres) land in village Mauja Hassanpur, tehsil Hodal, district Faridabad (now Palwal district) from H L Pahwa, a resident of DLF, Gurgaon, on March 3, 2008 at Rs 26.47 lakh, and Rs 1.5 lakh per acre collector rate has been mentioned on the sale deed.

Chautala asked, when the collector rate was Rs 6 lakh per acre at that time, why was a wrong collector rate mentioned on the sale deed. Chautala said that at that time the market price of the land was around Rs 30-35 lakh, collector rate was Rs 6 lakh, and Rahul evaded stamp duty.

Vadra purchased 72 kanals (around nine acres) at the same price from the same person at the same place and on the same day, he said. In both the deeds the witness is the same, Lalit Nagar, who contested the last Haryana polls on Congress ticket from a constituency in Palwal and lost.

“Apart from this deed of nine acres, Vadra purchased other chunks of land (74 acres in total) through seven other sale deeds in the same village in 2008-09, out of which 30 acres were purchased from Dalits, which is illegal as land allotted to Dalits can be transferred only to Dalits,” Chautala said.

In the remaining sale deeds of Vadra, the collector rate had gone up to Rs 8 lakh from Rs 6 lakh per acre. He said Vadra purchased around 1,000 of acres land across Gurgaon, Faridabad, Palwal, Mewat and Jhajjar districts.

Chautala came to Jalandhar especially to conduct the press meet, and his allegation is being seen by the Congress as a bid to save the SAD-BJP from the drug menace row.

‘Govt tweaked plan to favour Reliance SEZ’

Former Chief Minister and Indian National Lok Dal president Om Prakash Chautala Wednesday alleged

that the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in Haryana favoured Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Group by preparing the master plan in a manner that land allotted to Reliance was in areas where market price appreciated automatically.

He said the land was allotted to the group for developing SEZ with several concessions pertaining to taxes, but the SEZ failed and the land was not taken back.