A Delhi
court has summoned Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party
vice-president Rahul Gandhi along with five others following a legal
complaint that they were guilty of "dishonest misappropriation", "breach
of trust" and "cheating their own party".
The criminal complaint was lodged by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy last year.
He had alleged misappropriation of funds in acquiring ownership of the now-defunct daily National Herald.
Metropolitan
magistrate Gomati Manocha directed Sonia and Rahul Gandhi besides AICC
treasurer Moti Lal Vohra, general secretary Oscar Fernandes, and Suman
Dubey and Sam Pitroda, the other 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 - to
remain present in court on August 7.
Thousands cheated
In her 20-page order, the magistrate said there was enough evidence to
show that the accused cheated thousands of people who made donations as
well as shareholders of the now-defunct daily so that they could to fill
their "personal kitties".
As per Swamy's complaint, AJL acquired a debt of Rs 90 crore by the time it wrapped up the paper in 2008.
In
2010, Sonia, Rahul and the other accused got together and created YI,
76 per cent of whose shares are held by the mother-son duo.
YI proposed to liquidate AJL's debts by acquiring its shares and the
Congress party, through YI, released a sum of Rs 90 crore as a loan to
AJL.
AJL holds assets across India worth over Rs 5,000 crore, and hence this property became part of YI.
After this, the Congress wrote off the loan as unrecoverable, so YI was
not required to pay back anything to the party. Instead, it acquired Rs
5,000 crore worth of assets, besides the rent it receives from tenants
of the National Herald building at ITO in Delhi, Subramanian Swamy's complaint said.
He
also submitted documents and paper work to support his claim. These
documents were authenticated by the registrar of companies earlier this
year following which the case was admitted in court.
In its
order on Thursday June 26,2014, the court ruled that from the complaint and evidence,
it was clear that, "Young India was in fact created as a sham to
convert public money for personal use or as a special purpose vehicle
for acquiring control assets of AJL".
Manocha
said Sonia and Rahul had also committed a breach of trust against their
own party and that the "funds of the Congress party were not the
personal property of these accused persons".
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Sighvi said they would give an "appropriate response"
'Don't use summons to play politics'
The
Congress on Thursday June 26,2014 warned the BJP against playing politics over the
summons issued to party chief Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul
Gandhi, in a case that accuses them of cheating and criminal breach of
trust.
"If they try to play politics over it, we will give a befitting reply,"
Congress spokesman Anand Sharma said after a Delhi court issued a
summons to Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.
While Rahul is on a vacation abroad, Sonia is holidaying in Uttarakhand.
Describing
Subramanian Swamy as a "scandalous document peddler" and a "PIL factory", Sharma
described his petition as "politically motivated, malicious and
unmaintainable".
"What is the locus standi of Swamy? We will question the petition's maintainability in a higher court," said Sharma.
He
charged Subramanian Swamy with trying to attract the attention of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and the RSS, the BJP's ideological mentor, by levelling
false allegations against the Gandhi family.
Taking
a dig at Subramanian Swamy, who merged his Janata Party with the BJP before the Lok
Sabha polls, Sharma said the BJP leader had earlier levelled charges
against former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
No comments:
Post a Comment