ED issues summons to Sonia and Rahul

By Our Special Correspondent

The Enforcement Directorate issued Summons to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former party Chief Rahul Gandhi in connection with its probe into alleged money laundering in the National Herald case. The ED asked Sonia to appear before ED on June 8.

Earlier, ED registered a fresh case under the criminal provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after a trial court took cognizance of an Income Tax Department probe against Young Indian on the basis of Swamy’s complaint. ED had in April quizzed senior Congress leaders Pawan Bansal and Mallikarjun Kharge in connection with the case.

The case to look into alleged financial irregularities in the party promoted Young Herald that owns the National Herald newspaper was registered recently. Questioning of senior Congress leaders and Gandhi’s is part of ED’s investigation to understand the shareholding pattern, financiatransactions and role of promoters of Young Indian and AJL, people in the know said.

The Income Tax 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.

The case relates to an equity transaction in which Sonia and her son Rahul are accused of ‘misappropriating’ assets of Associated Journals ‘worth over Rs 2,000 crore’ by ‘paying just Rs 50 lakh’. An Income tax investigation against the Congress leaders stemmed from a private complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy in 2013. “So AJL became an indebted company, a company with debt. AJL did what every company in India does…it converted its debt into equity. So this debt of Rs 90 crore was assigned to a new company. It is called Young India so that the books of AJL become debt-free,” he said.