New Delhi: A court here yesterday issued summons to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son and party vice president Rahul Gandhi on charges of misappropriating funds of a company that used to publish the now-defunct National Herald newspaper.
In response to a private complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, Metropolitan Magistrate Gomati Manocha said: “I have found prima facie evidence against all the accused.” The court directed them to appear before it on August 7.
The Congress called it “a motivated complaint”. “The allegations are baseless,” said party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi. A party statement added: “All the people named in the National Herald matter will seek legal advice and do the needful.”
Apart from the Gandhis, the court also summoned Congress leaders Motilal Vora and Oscar Fernandes, Sam Pitroda, who was an advisor to former prime minister Manmohan Singh, and former journalist Suman Dubey, who is close to the Gandhi family.
The complaint alleged that the Gandhis formed a company, Young India, in 2010 with 38 percent share each to take control of Rs2,000 crore worth of assets of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), which published the National Herald. The National Herald was started in 1938 by Jawaharlal Nehru. Over the decades, it lost circulation and ran into major financial losses, leading to its closure in 2008.
The summons were also served on Young India. “The chain of circumstance appears to give rise to a conclusive or irresistible inference of an agreement between the accused to commit the offences as alleged in a pre-planned manner,” the court observed.
Speaking to reporters, Swamy said: “This is a fraud, criminal breach of trust as they have managed to misappropriate the fund of Rs2,000 crore. “It is important for the court to take away the passports of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi so that they do not run away from the country.”
Rebutting the charges, Singhvi accused Swamy of running a “motivated campaign” against the Congress. “This is a stale complaint made some time in 2013. About a year later, we heard in the press that a summons is being issued. We have not even received it yet. You can rest assured that a fitting response will be given after we receive the papers,” Singhvi said.
He said the offence was made possible because of the Gandhis’ “crony control over the Congress party and AJL”. He alleged that they closed AJL in 2008 due to financial crisis and stopped printing the National Herald and sister publications Navjivan (Hindi) and Qaumi Awaz (Urdu), which were saddled with huge debts.
To resolve the financial crisis, AJL transferred the share equity to Young India by payment of a mere Rs50 lakh without taking any reference from the shareholders. Young India thus acquired the complete ownership of AJL real estate assets of at least Rs2,000 crore, including a multi-storeyed building in a prime location in Delhi.
The court observed that the office bearers of Congress by advancing interest-free loan to the AJL, a public limited company involved in commercial activities, appeared to have defrauded a large number of persons who contributed to the political party by way of donation. The court observed that the revenue generated by the properties belonging to AJL is being dishonestly misappropriated by the directors of Young India. IANS
