New Delhi, June 26: A Delhi court today issued summons to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi in a criminal complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy for cheating and misappropriation of funds in the process of acquiring ownership of the defunct newspaper National Herald.
Metropolitan magistrate Gomati Manocha’s order said: “From the complaint and evidence it appears YI (Young Indian) was in fact created as a sham or a cloak to convert public money to personal use or as a special purpose vehicle for acquiring control over Rs 2,000 crore worth of assets.”
The judge said: “The complainant has established a prima facie case against the accused under Section 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property, 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) read with Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC.”
Summons were also issued to Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda, the other directors of Young Indian Ltd (YI), a company that took over the Associated Journals Ltd, the publisher of National Herald.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala responded saying: “We have not received any summons so far. The party and Congress leaders will take appropriate action after taking necessary legal advice on receipt of any such summons.”
Another spokesman, and a senior lawyer, Abhishek Singhvi, said: “Issuance of process over a stale complaint is not something to be excited about. Let’s seek comprehensive legal advice and you will see how all allegations are legally demolished.”
But Swamy said: “There was a serious breach of trust. If proven guilty, she could be jailed for 7 years.” Swamy had filed the case in 2012, prompting Rahul Gandhi to file a defamation suit against him, which was not followed up.
In November 2012, Rahul, in a letter sent to Swamy, described the allegations as “utterly false, entirely baseless and defamatory.”
Swamy had alleged that the Congress extending an interest-free loan to acquire Associated Journals for Young Indian violated the Income Tax Act as political parties received tax exemption. At that time, party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi had said: “the Indian National Congress has done its duty in supporting The Associated Journals Limited to help initiate a process to bring the newspaper back to health in compliance with the laws of the land.” Dwivedi said the Congress had extended this support in the form of interest-free loans from which no commercial profit has accrued.
Young Indian was formed on November 23, 2010, and registered under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956. It lists its address as 5A, Herald House, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi, the office of the now defunct National Herald.
Sonia and Rahul hold 76 per cent stake in the new venture.
The remaining shares are owned by Congress treasurer Motilal Vora and party general secretary Oscar Fernandes.
