The National Herald Case: A witch-hunt!

 

The National Herald Case: A witch-hunt!

The newspaper National Herald was established by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru during the freedom movement in 1938. The paper carried on its masthead the words 'Freedom is in Peril, Defend it with All Your Might’. The National Herald also had Hindi and Urdu editions named Navjeevan and Qaumi Awaz. These papers served as vanguards of the Indian freedom struggle. They were published by the Associated Journals Limited (AJL)- a brain child of Pandit Nehru. Following the Quit India Resolution, the British had banned the paper in 1942. The paper was revived in 1945 and continued to be published after the independence.

 

However, plagued by overstaffing and lack of revenue, the AJL ran into huge losses and had shut down its operations.in 2008. The All-India Congress Committee (AICC) gave the AJL interest free loans to help save the newspaper and pay the salaries of journalists and staffers at a time when the AJLfaced debts amounting to Rs.90.21 crore. In 2010, Young Indian Pvt. Ltd was established under Section 25 of the Companies Act, as a not-for-profit company, with Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda as founder directors with the objective “to inculcate in the mind of India’s youth commitment to the ideal of democratic and secular society.” They transferred their shares to the Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Sonia and Raul holding 38% shares each of the Young Indian, while Motilal Vora and Oscar Fernandes holding the remaining 24% shares, in their capacity as the office bearers of the Congress and not as private individuals. Subsequently, the AICC decided to assign the AJL’s debt of .90.21 crore to the Young Indian (YI). After ‘the loan was assigned to YI, it was converted into equity on February 26, 2011.” (HT 14/6). As The Indian Express (18/6) reported,” the loan assigned was converted into shares of AJL and AJL allotted 9,02,16,889 equity shares to YI in lieu of the loan amount. In this manner, almost 99.99% shares of AJL were transferred to YI.” 

 

In 2012 Subramanian Swamy, a BJP MP, filed a private criminal compliant before a Delhi Magistrate’s court “claiming that the Gandhis had committed fraud and misused party funds to purchase the company that ran the National Herald newspaper. Swamy claimed that by acquiring AJL, through a new company, Young Indian, Gandhis had also acquired properties worth several hundred crores owned by AJL in cities such as Mumbai, Lucknow, Patna, Panchkula and Delhi.” (HT 14/6). What is the locus-standi of Swamy to raise the issue that concerns the Congress party? The Congress has repeatedly denied any wrong doing and argued that the plea of Swamy was mala-fide because no agency has unearthed any proof of illegality.

 

The IT Department took cognisance of a private complaint by Swamy and ordered the reassessment of the IT returns for 2011-12 of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. It issued notices to Rahul, Sonia and others alleging concealing of income arising out of shares held by them in YI, although there was no transaction of money and no financial benefit accrued to them from the Young Indian. They have challenged the IT Notices and the matter is pending in the Supreme Court.

 

And yet, the self-righteous Swamy wrote to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in July 2014 seeking a money laundering probe against the Gandhis. Interestingly, there was no complaint against the Congress party that bailed out the National Herald. The ED is grilling Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case, accusing him of money laundering. The issue of whether the ED can register a money laundering case in the absence of an FIR is set to be brought before the court. Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram argues that the ED cannot investigate the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on the basis of a private compliant, without an FIR and scheduled offence. Where is the money laundering when not a single rupee is received by Gandhis? They are targeted to defame.  According to him, the ED never used the PMLA in BJP ruled states, in spite of serious charges of corruption against the Minister K.S.Eshwarappa in Bommai government of Karnataka of demanding 40% commission by the contractor Santosh Patil in  his suicide note. It is the first time that the ED has invoked the PMLA and acting on a private compliant without an FIR and scheduled offence. And selectively leaking what has transpired between Rahul Gandhi and the ED during the long grillings, stretched over many days, and lasting more than ten hours at a  time, creating a false narrative, showing its bias and prejudice.

 

Surprisingly, the ED’s stand seven years ago in 2015 was that an FIR was mandatory to register the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR). The Hindu (17/6) reported, the ED then concluded that “for registering the ECIR, the requirement of FIR, under Section154 of Code of Criminal Procedure,1973 and its forwarding to a Magistrate under Section157 of Code of Criminal Procedure 1973(2 of 19740) is essential.” However, this position of the ED was overturned, paving the way for an ECIR about nine months ago after a court took cognisance of charges against the Young Indian, the Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others, based on. Swamy’s complaint. The ED has taken cognisance of the so-called scheduled offence, without an FIR, in line with what Subramanian Swamy has argued.

As per the Companies Act, share holders of a company do not own its property. That is how even the Tata Sons do not own Tata Companies. Therefore, it is a mischievous argument that the Gandhis, as shareholders of the Young Indian, have acquired its properties. According to Bishwajit Bhattacharyya, former Additional Solicitor General of India, “if there is no scheduled offence, as defined in Section 2(y) of the Act, there cannot be any proceeds of crime, as defined in Section 2(1) (u) of the Act. And, if there is no proceeds of crime, there cannot be any offence of money laundering, as defined in Section 3 of PMLA”.  Thus, by investigating the Gandhis under the PMLA, the ED is usurping power without jurisdiction.   

 

The investigating agencies are misused by the present regime at the Centre to defame and discredit political rivals. Hardly a day passes without some agency taking action against some Opposition leader. The present ED Director S.K. Mishra is given extension twice, by brining an Ordinance(which became a law subsequently) just a few days before his retirement in 2021, extending the term of the Director from two years to five years. Having been thus obliged, the Director seems to be toeing the line of the establishment to implicate Rahul Gandhi somehow. It is a witch-hunt. The editorial ‘Selective use of the law is unacceptable’ in The Free Press Journal (17/6) has succinctly summed up why the Centre is using the ED to target Gandhis:

 

“The case is nothing new, as it had been investigated in the past and it was found that there was nothing criminal in the financial transactions…The ED has, over the years, become a powerful tool in the hands of the government to harass Opposition leaders. It is no secret that Rahu Gandhi is one leader whom the ruling party hates the most… The BJP’s hatred for the Congress is understandable because it is still the only party with an all-India base which has the potential to challenge the ruling party at the Centre and in many states…Rahul Gandhi is one leader who never held any office of profit and who never compromised his stand on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party. What is more, there was never any let-up in his campaign against the Sangh Parivar. In short, no other political leader has been so consistent and forthright as Rahul Gandhi has been in his opposition to the BJP's ideology. It is against this backdrop that the government .has found in the National Herald case a weapon against not only Rahul Gandhi but also his mother and Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi …In any crime, the investigators have to find out who the actual beneficiaries of the crime are...The question that arises is: Did Rahul Gandhi or Sonia Gandhi benefit from the Young Indian taking over  National Herald ? Did the two get any pecuniary benefit from the transition?... selective use of the law to harass the Opposition, when worse financial transactions are done by the ruling party does not make the nation proud”

 

It is claimed that the National Herald property is worth Rs.2000 crore. However, the fact of the matter is that the value is notional like the ‘presumptive losses’ the UPA government suffered in the 2G spectrum allocation. To think the grandson of the ‘Iron Lady of India’ Indira Gandhi and the great grandson of Pandit Nehru-the father of modern India- could be intimidated and  coerced and silenced is to betray the lack of understanding of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Rahul Gandhi is made of sterner stuff, and he can never be cowed down. Courage and fearlessness and deep commitment to the idea of India, that is all inclusive, are the ingredients of his illustrious family, that had martyrs- his grand mother and father- who made the supreme sacrifice for the Indian nation. However, what is disturbing and worrying is the total surrender of independence and autonomy by the central investigating agencies and the loss of neutrality and credibility, and  their willingness to do the bidding of the ruling party.