National Herald case: ED seals Young Indian Ltd's office in Delhi

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday sealed the head office of the Congress-owned National Herald newspaper in New Delhi, a day after conducting raids at a dozen locations in connection with its ongoing money laundering probe.
Simultaneously, the road to AICC headquarters in the national capital was blocked on Wednesday with the Congress alleging the party was "under siege" while the police said barricades have been erected and its personnel deputed to avoid any untoward situation.

The Congress described the ED action and police deployment as "pressure tactics" by the government and claimed it was an attempt to prevent its nationwide protest against the Centre on August 5.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh took to Twitter to condemn the deployment of heavy security near the party's headquarters.

On Tuesday, the agency had carried out searches at 12 locations in connection with the case under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to "gather additional evidences with regard to the trail of funds".
The raids were also conducted at the 'Herald House' office located at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, ITO in central Delhi, which has been sealed today.
The address is registered in the name of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) which publishes the newspaper.
The ED has extensively questioned Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her MP son Rahul Gandhi in the case apart from a few other Congress politicians.
While Sonia Gandhi was questioned for over 11 hours over three rounds last month, Rahul was quizzed for more than 50 hours over five days in June.
The questioning had led to a series of protests by the Congress members across the country, with senior leaders taking to the streets to condemn the ED action against the Gandhis.
Pressure tactics by Centre: Cong
Responding strongly to the ED's action, the Congress claimed that today's events were pressure tactics by the government in an attempt to scuttle its nationwide protest on August 5.

"There was no reason, no provocation for the government to deploy security forces and take such action except that Congress was planning a nationwide protest on August 5," Congress leader Ajay Maken said during a media briefing.
He said that Congress also received a letter from the Delhi Police saying that it cannot stage protests on August 5.
"The government may suppress us as much as they want but we will protest against inflation, unemployment, GST on edible items & go ahead with our schedule even if jailed," he said.
Taking the attack to the central government, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that "fear" is not a word in the dictionary of the grand old party party and described the ED raids in the case as actions of a "fearful and scared government".
Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot called the heavy police deployment near Congress's headquarters an "undeclared emergency".
"Turning Congress HQ & 10 Janpath into a Police cantonment is undeclared emergency. National Herald(Young Indian)office forcefully sealed. If public doesn't stand with Congress against this dictatorial govt, results will have to be brunt by entire country," he said on Twitter.
What is the case about
The case pertains to allegations of financial irregularities during the acquisition of AJL by the Gandhi-owned Young Indian Limited in 2010.

The Congress party has said it gave a Rs 90 crore loan to an ailing AJL between 2001-02 and 2010-11 and later, in 2011, the shares of AJL were allotted to Young Indian and this debt was converted into equity and the loan was extinguished in the books of the AJL.
The ED claims these transactions attract anti-money laundering charges as a complex web of transactions and routing of funds were undertaken by the party and its leaders to acquire AJL's assets worth multiple crores of rupees.
The Gandhis are understood to have told the ED during their separate questioning sessions that no personal assets were made in the Congress-AJL-National Herald deal as Young Indian was a "not-for-profit" company established under section 25 of the Companies Act.
They also told the ED that AJL continues to have possession of all its assets and Young Indian neither "owns nor controls" these properties.
Sonia and Rahul are among the promoters and majority shareholders in Young Indian. Like her son, the Congress president also has 38 per cent shareholding.
The ED action in the case was initiated after the agency late last year registered a fresh case under the PMLA after a trial court here took cognisance of an Income Tax department probe against Young Indian based on a private criminal complaint by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in 2013.

Swamy had accused the Gandhis and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds, with Young Indian paying only Rs 50 lakh to obtain the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that Associated Journals Limited owed to the Congress.
The Congress party had called the ED action against its leaders "political vendetta", saying there was no money laundering in the case.
In February last year, the Delhi high court issued a notice to the Gandhis seeking their response to Swamy's plea.
According to the ED, assets worth about Rs 800 crore are "owned" by the AJL and the agency wants to know from the Gandhis how a "not-for-profit company like Young Indian was undertaking commercial activities of renting out its land and building assets".
The Congress party has said that the Income Tax Department has valued AJL's properties at worth about Rs 350 crore.
(With inputs from PTI)
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