Congress President Sonia Gandhi, and son Rahul Gandhi were today summoned as accused by a local court for alleged cheating and misappropriation of funds in acquiring ownership of the now-defunct daily National Herald.
Holding that complainant BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has established a prima facie case of cheating, misappropriation of funds and criminal breach of trust against the accused, Metropolitan Magistrate Gomati Manocha also issued summons to AICC Treasurer Moti Lal Vohra, General Secretary Oscar Fernandes, and Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda, besides the Gandhis, to appear before the court on August 7.
All of them are directors of Young Indian Ltd (YI), a company that was incorporated in 2010 and which took over the “debt” of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), the publisher of National Herald.
Swamy had accused Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by just paying ₹50 lakh by which YI obtained the right to recover ₹90.25 crore which the AJL had owed to the Congress party.
He alleged that in the present scenario over ₹2,000 crore worth of assets also got transferred to YI, whose 76 per cent of shareholding vests with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and the remaining shareholding of 24 per cent vests with the other accused.
“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.
“Hence, let the accused Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Moti Lal Vohra, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda be summoned for August 7, 2014. Let the Young Indian be summoned through it’s authorised representative for the same date,” said Manocha.
Reacting to the development, Congress spokesman and a senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the party will respond “vigorously” to the allegations made by Swamy.
“Dr Swamy is known for his personal, motivated campaign against the Congress and you can take it that as and when we receive the papers and take the full legal advice a very vigorous response will be filed in respect of this completely false and motivated complaint.