NEW DELHI: The fact that the same set of decision makers from the Gandhi
family influenced events in Congress, Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) and
Young Indian (YI) convinced the Delhi high court that Congress chief Sonia and her son and party vice-president Rahul must face criminal proceedings in the National Herald takeover case.
Justice
Sunil Gaur termed it "a one of its kind case" where "probity of a
legendary national political party is under the scanner" because of
allegations of cheating, breach of trust and misappropriation of funds.
At
the heart of BJP member Subramanium Swamy's charge is the claim that
Gandhis, together with their loyalists, conspired to hijack a public
listed company AJL (with thousands of crores of real estate) via a privately managed trust, YI, by misusing their position at Congress.
The
court was also struck by the fact that Congress party gave
interest-free loans to a public limited company, only to transfer
liability to a private firm, before writing it off as bad loan. In
between the private trust, YI, managed to take over AJL and restructure
it only on the strength of it holding the debt liability.
Justice
Gaur listed out eight "factual steps" related to the case that prompted
him to continue criminal proceedings. These include the decision of AJL
to close operations in 2008; floating of a new company YI two years
later only to own the outstanding debt of 90 crores owed by AJL to
Congress party; the AJL board resolving without reference to
shareholders that in lieu of YI owing the debt and for Rs 50 lacs more,
entire share equity of AJL would be transferred to YI. In effect, AJL
became a wholly owned company of YI.
HC also took note
that under Sonia, Congress decided to write off the loan extended to AJL
as "irrecoverable" on the ground that net worth of the company is
negative, even though it had Rs 2,000 crore worth of real estate to pay back Rs 90 crores.
"Thus
AJL became a wholly owned company of YI by merely paying Rs 50 lacs and
in this manner YI acquired complete control of AJL which had real
estate assets of at least Rs 2000 crores in prime areas f New Delhi,
Lucknow, Bhopal, Mumbai, Indore, Patna, Panchkula and other places," the court noted in its order.
In
his complaint Swamy also alleged that rights of shareholders of AJL and
its properties were siphoned off by the accused who converted loan of
Rs 90 crores into equity shares in favour of YI. The court saw some
merit in the allegation that not just AJL, even Congress was cheated
because it had to waive off Rs 90 crore loan that could have easily been
recovered from AJL if YI was not in the picture.
Upholding
Swamy's right as a private citizen to file a criminal case against a
political party, the HC said "In a democratic set up, how a political
party of national stature acts is everyone's concern. Rather, it is a
matter of serious concern as allegations of fraud, etc are levelled
against the Congress party who has ruled the nation formany decades."
It
also questioned why the Gandhis assigned the huge debt of Rs 90 crores
to YI when "this debt could have been easily liquidated by AJL from its
sizeable assets." HC viewed with suspicion the transfer of debt by
Congress to YI from AJL for a "paltry" sum of Rs 50 lacs, terming it
"certainly questionable and justifiably attracting allegations of
cheating, criminal breach of trust etc."
Red flagging
another issue the court said any prudent person will wonder "why
interest-free loan was assigned and why it was written off", adding that
even waiving off the debt by the party "can legitimately attract
allegations of cheating, fraud etc."
