The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has sent notices to Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and called them for questioning. Party leaders have given this information. Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that this notice has been issued regarding the National Herald case. After which now Sonia and Rahul can appear in front of ED officials for questioning on June 8.
The National Herald case was closed by the investigating agency in 2015. The National Herald case pertains to the alleged misappropriation of assets of over ₹2,000 crores in an equity transaction. The National Herald newspaper was started in 1942, under British rule. Congress leader Randeep Surjewala has said that the Enforcement Directorate has sent notices to party president Sonia Gandhi and MP Rahul Gandhi in a money laundering allegation related to the National Herald case.
“In 2015, the ED closed the National Herald case. But the govt didn’t like it and it removed the ED officials concerned, brought in new officials, and reopened the case. This is to divert attention from inflation and other raging problems,” Singhvi said.
The notice to the Gandhis has been served a few days ago. In April, the ED questioned former Union minister Pawan Bansal and senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in connection with the money laundering probe into the National Herald case.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, who was present at the press conference, said that Congress brought out the National Herald newspaper to overthrow the British rule. The British felt so much danger that they banned the newspaper during the Quit India Movement. Today again the ideology supporting the British rule is trying to suppress this freedom movement.
The Herald Case:
The National Herald case relates to an equity transaction in which Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi are accused of allegedly misappropriating assets of Associated Journals worth over Rs 2,000 crore by paying a paltry sum of just Rs 50 lakh. The Gandhis, however, have denied any wrongdoing, but courts have found merit in the allegations against them. Besides the Gandhis, Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey, and Sam Pitroda are among the accused in the case. Young India Ltd (YIL) was set up in November 2010. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi together hold a majority share of 76 percent while rest 24 percent stake was held by Motilal Vora and Oscar Fernandes — 12 percent each.
The National Herald newspaper had become a defunct entity. It was no longer in print due to losses. Then Congress thought of reviving the newspaper which, it says, had played a role in the freedom movement. The Congress went ahead and granted a Rs 90-crore interest-free loan to the AJL. The money was, the party said, to help initiate a process to bring the newspaper back to health. However, the newspaper could not be revived and the AJL failed to repay the loan to Congress.
The Scam:
In 2010, Congress, which was the original lender to AJL, assigned the debt to the YIL. Following this, AJL now had to pay back Rs90 crore to the YIL. But as AJL was not in a position to pay back the loans, it transferred all its shareholding to Gandhis-owned YIL. For this, YIL paid just Rs 50 lakh. Now, the charges against Gandhis are that they took over a publicly-held company — with prime real estate properties worth over Rs 2000 crore — which had about thousands of stakeholders by paying just Rs 50 lakh.
In December 2015, former law minister Shanti Bhushan said that his father Vishwamitra was also one of the shareholders of the AJL. But Bhushan said that he was neither informed nor was his consent sought while transferring the shares to YIL. Vishwamitra, Bhushan said, had five preferential shares — more than Nehru who had just three — worth Rs 500. He also said that Kailash Nath Katju (the late Congress leader and ex-chief minister of Madhya Pradesh) had seven preferential shares and 131 ordinary shares worth Rs 2,000.
What the court said:
In June 2014, Metropolitan Magistrate Gomati Manocha summoned all accused in the case, including the Gandhis. She said that evidence before her suggested that YIL was in fact created as a “sham or a cloak” to convert public money to personal use to acquire multi-crore assets of AJL. The magistrate said that the complainant had established a prima facie case against the accused under Section 403 (Dishonest Misappropriation of Property), Section 406 (Criminal Breach of Trust), and Section 420 (Cheating) read with Section 120B (Criminal Conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Currently, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are out on bail granted by Patiala House Court in 2015.
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