Swamy moves apex court to stall relief to Sonia, Rahul

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, February 3

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has approached the Supreme Court pleading against grant of any relief to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald assets misappropriation case.

Swamy, who is the complainant in the case, filed a caveat in the SC pleading that the court should hear him before passing any order in the appeal being filed by the Gandhis against the Delhi High Court’s December 7, 2015 judgment refusing to quash the trial court proceedings against them.

Swamy’s move comes in the wake of reports that the two Congress chiefs were in the process of coming to the SC for expunction of HC remarks that were perceived to be prejudicial to them and had the potential to influence the trial court against them.

Swamy claimed the alleged fraud amounted to Rs 5,000 crore at current prices. He had said the Gandhis had formed Young India Ltd (YIL) in 2010 with 38 per cent share each to take control of the assets of the Associated Journal Ltd (AJL), the holding company of Herald publications, including Navjivan in Hindi and Quami Awaz in Urdu.

The Gandhis had pleaded that no way they had benefitted from the YIL acquiring majority shareholdings of the AJL. The YIL, in which the Gandhis and other Congress leaders were directors, was a Section 25 company, akin to a society, and as such its shareholders did not get any dividend, salary or other benefits, including a share in the profit, their advocates had contended.

Further, AJL’s properties in Delhi, Mumbai, Patna and Panchkula were under government leases and could not be disposed of.

The HC had also remarked that it was of the view that the gravity of the allegations “has a fraudulent flavour involving a national political party and so serious imputations smacking of criminality levelled against the petitioners need to be properly looked into.” The objections raised by the Gandhis could be considered by the trial court at the stage of framing charges, the HC had said. The HC had also rejected similar pleas by Motilal Vora, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda.