ED grills CM’s son Vaibhav Gehlot in FEMA violation probe

On Monday, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s son Vaibhav Gehlot appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) here for questioning in a foreign exchange violation case. The federal agency had last week issued a summons to Vaibhav Gehlot (43) to appear before the investigating officer of the case, at its headquarters on A P J Abdul Kalam Road, under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
Vaibhav Gehlot is also the president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association and a member of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). Following the summons, he had said that the agency was putting up “10-12 years old false allegations against him and that too after election dates were declared”.
Voting for the 200-seat Rajasthan assembly will be held on 25 November. Counting of votes in Rajasthan along with four other states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Telangana will take place on 3 December. The agency recorded Vaibhav Gehlot’s statement under the FEMA, under which legal proceedings are civil in nature.
While on an hour-long lunch break outside the ED office, Vaibhav Gehlot said, “I or my family have no links to FEMA or foreign transactions…they gave me less time to appear in the summons. I had sought 15 days time…they should have given more time to me.”
The FEMA summons is linked to recent ED raids against Rajasthan-based hospitality group Triton Hotels & Resorts Pvt. Ltd., Vardha Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. and its directors and promoters Shiv Shankar Sharma, Rattan Kant Sharma and others. The agency had searched the group and its promoters for three days in August at locations in Jaipur, Udaipur, Mumbai and Delhi. It had claimed to have recovered “incriminating” documents during the raids and alleged that the Triton group had been “involved in hawala transactions having cross-border implications.”
The agency also seized “unaccounted” cash of Rs 1.27 crore and digital evidence, hard disks, mobiles etc, which show “large-scale transactions done by the group out of the books of account”, the ED had said in a statement. It added that “unaccounted” cash receipts have been invested in the development of hotels.
Rattan Kant Sharma’s alleged links with Vaibhav Gehlot are under the scanner of the ED and the agency is expected to question and record his statement under FEMA. He has been a business partner of Vaibhav Gehlot in a car rental company in the past. The senior Gehlot and the Congress party had called this ED action “politically motivated”.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had alleged that agencies such as the ED, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax Department become the real ‘panna pramukh (party workers)’ of the BJP as soon as elections come. He said, “Seeing its certain defeat in Rajasthan, the Bharatiya Janata Party made its last throw of the dice! After Chhattisgarh, the ED has also entered the election campaign in Rajasthan and started action against Congress leaders.”
Ashok Gehlot had put up a picture of the ED summons sent to his son on his X social media handle and told a press conference that the Congress launched guarantees for women of Rajasthan on 25 October and the ED raids against Rajasthan Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra and Vaibhav Gehlot came just a day later.