After Mallikarjun Kharge, ED questions Pawan Bansal in National Herald case

On Monday, the agency had questioned Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in the case. Kharge had been questioned as he is an office-bearer of Young Indian, an organisation owned by the Congress that runs the newspaper through a company named Associated Journals Ltd (AJL).

Sources said Bansal, 73, has been called for questioning in his capacity as the managing director of AJL. Both the leaders have been questioned on the shareholding pattern of AJL and Young Indian and the circumstances under which AJL was acquired by Young Indian, which has the Gandhi family as the majority stakeholder.

Sources 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 ED case has been filed without any predicate offence (a criminal case) being registered by any other agency. Under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the ED is not authorised to register a case of money laundering until another agency or state police has registered a First Information Report (FIR). The idea is that there cannot be any money laundering until a crime has been committed.

“In this case, the ED Enforcement Case Information Report has been registered based on the court order following Subramanian Swamy’s complaint. ED is authorised to register a case if there is a court order specifying a crime has been committed,” an ED official said.

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 newspaper. Swami had alleged that the Gandhis acquired properties owned by National Herald by buying over the newspaper’s erstwhile publishers through Young Indian in which they have an 86 per cent stake.

Sonia and Rahul 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 Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others have been accused of misappropriating funds by paying just Rs 50 lakh, through which Young Indian had obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that AJL owed to the Congress.

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.

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

“The AJL, after the acquisition of the plot, projected it as untainted property and further acquired loans by way of mortgaging it from time to time. Since the value of the plot fraudulently allotted to AJL has represented proceeds of crime, the ED has attached the plot under PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act),” an ED statement 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. Sources said the discrepancies had also been flagged in a state audit report.