ED replaces investigating officer probing Vadra

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has replaced the investigation officer probing the case of Robert Vadra, brother-in-law of Congress President Rahul Gandhi, official sources said.

According to highly-placed sources in the agency, the ED has replaced IPS officer Rajiv Sharma with Mahesh Gupta of the Indian Revenue Services (IRS).

The source said the reason for the move was required as Sharma was on leave for almost one and half months.

The source said that Sharma's promotion was pending for long. He had joined the agency as the Deputy Director and was supposed to be promoted as the Joint Director.

For his promotion, Sharma had to go back to his parent cadre, the source said. And keeping in view the seriousness of Vadra's case, Gupta was made the investigating officer, it said.

Sharma joined office on Monday. The ED has been probing Vadra in a money laundering case involving alleged assets abroad.

The case relates to the ownership of 1.9 million pounds of overseas assets and undisclosed entities set up to evade tax.