Congress suffers setback in National Herald case; Delhi court issues notice to Sonia and Rahul

NEW DELHI: The court has directed to send notices to Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case. The Rouse Avenue court has directed the Congress leaders to respond to the chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) today. The ED has presented more evidence in the case.

The case will be heard again on May 7. Judge Vishal Gogne had pointed out that the ED's charge sheet was incomplete when the case was heard on May 25. The court had also said that the leaders cannot be issued notices based on that charge sheet.

The ED has registered a case on a complaint by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have embezzled assets worth crores of rupees from AJL, the owners of the National Herald newspaper, through a company called Young Indian, whose directors are Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Associated Journals Limited, the operating company of the National Herald newspaper, had taken an interest-free loan of Rs 90 crore from the Indian National Congress. It is alleged that when this amount was not repaid, a company called Young Indian, formed in 2010 with a capital of Rs 5 lakh, took over the assets of Associated Journals Company worth Rs 5,000 crore.

The directors of the Young Indian Company are Sonia, Rahul, Mallikarjun Kharge, Sam Pitroda, etc. The complainant alleges that Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and their associates formed a company called Young India and looted the company AJL, which had assets worth crores of rupees.