National Herald case: ED summons Rahul Gandhi for fifth time today

Sources said Rahul arrived at the ED office around 11am and was questioned till late in the evening. Sources said while the agency believes it may need to summon Rahul again on Tuesday, the Congress MP has been requesting the agency to finish the interrogations as early as possible as he needs to take care of his mother Sonia, who is suffering from Covid-19 infection. Sonia, too, has been called for questioning by the agency on June 23.

The ED had summoned Rahul last Monday and questioned him for three straight days. Sources said Rahul is being questioned about the ownership of Young Indian (YI) by the Gandhi family and its shareholding in Associate Journals Limited (AJL), the company that runs the National Herald newspaper. He is being questioned about the circumstances under which AJL was acquired by Young Indian in 2010 for a “pittance” making it in turn the owner of all assets owned by the National Herald newspaper.

The ED case is based on a trial court order that allowed the Income Tax Department to probe the affairs of the National Herald newspaper and conduct a tax assessment of Sonia and Rahul. The order was the result of a petition filed by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in 2013.

Swamy’s complaint had alleged cheating and misappropriation of funds on part of the Gandhis in acquiring the newspaper. Swami had alleged that the Gandhis acquired properties owned by National Herald by buying the newspaper’s erstwhile publishers, AJL, through an organisation called Young Indian in which they have 76 per cent stake. Sonia and Rahul were granted bail in the case by the trial court on December 19, 2015.

In Swamy’s complaint before the trial court, Sonia, Rahul and others have been accused of misappropriating funds by paying Rs 50 lakh for Young Indian (YI) to obtain the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that AJL owed to the Congress.

It was alleged that YI, which was incorporated in November 2010 with a capital of Rs 50 lakh, had acquired almost all the shareholding of AJL, which was running National Herald. The I-T department had claimed that the shares owned by Rahul in YI would lead him to have an income of Rs 154 crore and not about Rs 68 lakh, as was assessed earlier. It has already issued a demand notice for Rs 249.15 crore to YI for the assessment year 2011-12.

Earlier, the ED had initiated a money laundering probe against AJL in 2018 in connection with a plot allotted to it in Haryana’s Panchkula by then chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The ED had attached the plot, accusing the company of having acquired it “fraudulently”. Hooda is an accused in the money laundering case registered by the agency in the matter.

The ED case is based on a trial court order that allowed the Income Tax Department to probe the affairs of National Herald newspaper and conduct a tax assessment of Sonia and Rahul. The order was the result of a petition filed by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in 2013.