ED questions Mallikarjun Kharge in fresh case against National Herald

Sources said Kharge has been called for questioning as he is an office-bearer of Young India, a Congress organisation that runs the newspaper through a company named Associated Journals Ltd (AJL).

They said the new case was registered six months ago based on a trial court order that allowed the Income Tax department to probe the affairs of the National Herald and even make a tax assessment of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party leader Rahul Gandhi.

The I-T probe against the Congress leaders arose from the investigation into a private criminal complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy before a trial court in Delhi in 2013. The complaint had alleged cheating and misappropriation of funds on part of Gandhis in the acquisition of the National Herald newspaper. Swami had alleged that the Gandhis acquired properties owned by the National Herald by buying over the newspaper’s erstwhile publishers through Young India of which they have an 86 per cent stake.

Sonia and Rahul Gandhi were granted bail in the case by the trial court on December 19, 2015.

A tax evasion petition (TEP) was also addressed to the finance minister by Swamy.

In the complaint before the trial court, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and others have been accused of misappropriating funds by paying just Rs 50 lakh, through which Young Indian (YI) had obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) owed to the Congress party.

It was alleged that YI, which was incorporated in November 2010 with a capital of Rs 50 lakh, had acquired almost all the shareholding of AJL, which was running the National Herald newspaper.

The I-T department had said the shares Rahul Gandhi has 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.

Earlier, ED had initiated a money laundering probe against AJL in 2018 in connection with a plot it was allotted in Haryana’s Panchkula by then chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. In 2018, the ED had attached a plot of land in Panchkula, accusing the company of having acquired it “fraudulently”. Hooda is an accused in the money laundering case registered by the probe agency in the matter.

“The AJL, after the acquisition of the said plot projected it as untainted property and further acquired loans from the bank by way of mortgaging the same from time to time. Since the value of plot fraudulently allotted to AJL has represented proceeds of crime, the ED has attached plot under PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act),” an ED statement had said at that time.

According to ED sources, as the ex-officio chairman of the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), Hooda caused a loss of Rs 65 lakh to the exchequer by granting the land to AJL in contravention of rules and against the advice of his own officers. They said the discrepancies had also been flagged in a state audit report.