More woes for Sonia, Rahul Gandhi: Soon I-T summons over National Herald case?

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and chairperson Sonia Gandhi may be in for a rude shock shortly. The duo are likely to get summons from the Income Tax Department to pay tax and penalty on Rs 1,300 crore allegedly fraudulently earned from the transfer of shares of Associated Journal Ltd (AJL), publishers of the now-defunct party newspaper The National Herald, a report in The Indian Express said. [caption id=“attachment_2309924” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  PTI image.[/caption] BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has  accused Sonia, Rahul and other Congress leaders of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying Rs 50 lakh which allows the Young Indian Ltd (YIL) company to acquire the Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), the publisher of now defunct National Herald newspaper. Swamy alleged that AJL had received an interest-free loan of Rs 90.25 crore from the Congress and that the party transferred the debt to YIL for Rs 50 lakh. At the time (2012), AJL, which had Motilal Vora as its chairman, claimed that it could not repay the loan and agreed to transfer the company and its assets to YIL. The Congress, not surprisingly, had cried foul with Sonia saying  that the party and its cadre will not be “cowed down by such revengeful witchhunts”. Congress said that the leaders had “done its duty” in supporting Associated Journals  to “help initiate a process to bring the (National Herald) newspaper back to health in compliance with the law of the land.” Investigators have said that since Rahul and Sonia have transferred shares of AJL after YIL acquired the publisher’s shares, they should have been revalued as per the shares were originally held by AJL. According to The Indian Express report, this is how the shares are divided among the four according to I-T records, 83.3 per cent of YIL is held by Sonia and Rahul, 15.5 percent by Congress veteran Motilal Vohra and the remaining 1.2 percent by party loyalist Oscar Fernandes. On 26 June 2014, the trial court issued summons on a complaint by Swamy , “a firm in which Sonia and Rahul Gandhi each own a 38-percent stake”. Sonia and Rahul, Congress treasurer Moti Lal Vora, General Secretary Oscar Fernandes and Suman Dubey had moved the High Court against the trial court order. The trial court in its order, while summoning the Gandhis and others, had said that YIL appeared to have been “created as a sham or a cloak to convert public money to personal use” or a special purpose vehicle to acquire control over assets worth Rs 2,000 crore of AJL. In January 2015, the judge, who on 6 August had stayed the summons issued against the Gandhis and others, and on 15 December, 2014 had listed the matter to be heard on day-to-day basis, recused himself from the case. Justice VP Vaish said he will not hear the matter as his roster of cases has been changed and directed that the petitions be listed before an appropriate bench. Swamy had opposed the judge’s recusal and requested that the matter be heard by the same court which has been largely dealing with it, as a fresh hearing of the case would further delay the issue. The court declined Swamy’s request and transferred the case.