The Indian National Congress and the Associated Journals Private Limited (AJL) on Friday submitted their respective balance sheets to a Delhi court in The National Herald case of cheating and misappropriation.
Submitting the documents in sealed covers, counsel for the party and the company urged the court not to open the covers till the Delhi High Court decides two petitions filed by Sam Pitroda and Suman Dubey, two of the six accused in the case, challenging the lower court order for submission of the documents. The court allowed their plea.
Allowing a plea by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, a Delhi court had last month asked them to submit their balance sheets. The High Court is scheduled to hear the petitions on April 18. AJL is the publisher of the now defunct daily, The National Herald .
Summoning their balance sheets for 2010-2011, Metropolitan magistrate Loveleen had said that they could not be referred as the “personal documents” of the accused.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi and four others face prosecution in the case on a complaint by Dr. Swamy. All the accused are on bail.
Dr. Swamy had sought summoning of the balance sheets, receipts, income and expenditure statements for the assessment years 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 of the party, the AJL and the Young Indian Limited (YIL). However, he later did not press for the YIL’s documents.
According to the complaint, the accused, including Congress leaders Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, former editor Suman Dubey and tech guru Sam Pitroda, “fraudulently” acquired AJL, and transferred its assets worth crores of rupees to another company, Young Indian.
“Young Indian was in fact created as a special purpose vehicle for acquiring control over Rs. 2,000 crore worth of assets of the AJL, and since all the accused have allegedly acted in consortium with each other to achieve the said nefarious purpose/design, there are sufficient grounds for proceeding against all of them,” the lower court had observed while summoning them in 2014.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had sought balance sheets for three consecutive years
