National Herald case: ED chargesheets Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul

The Enforcement Directorate has filed a charge sheet against Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi Rahul Gandhi and others on charges of money laundering in the National Herald caseSpecial judge Vishal Gogne examined the charge sheet which was filed on April 9 on the point of cognisance and posted the matter for further proceedings on April 25The charge sheet also names Congress leader Sam Pitroda and Suman Dubey as accused personsThe present prosecution complaint shall next be taken up for consideration on the aspect of cognisance before this court on April 25 2025 when the special counsel for the ED and IO shall also ensure the production of the case diaries for perusal by the court the judge saidThe chargesheet was filed under Sections 3 money laundering and 4 punishment for money laundering of Prevention of Money Laundering Act by EDs special public prosecutor N K MattaLet the complaint be checked and registered The Ahlmad court staff shall ensure that the entire filedocuments are properly paginated The ED is directed to file a soft copy of the complaint and documents in readableOCR format by the next date the judge saidThe special judge dealing with the cases of lawmakers also noted the submission of the ED which said it would be moving an application before the district judge for the transfer of the case related to the predicate offence being probed by the CBI for alleged cheating criminal conspiracy and other offences based on which the ED had started its investigation in the present matter from another court to Judge Gognes courtThe predicate offence is required to be tried by the same court which takes cognisance of the offence under Section 3 PMLA the jude said and Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were members of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha respectivelyEssentially the two offences viz the predicate offence and the PMLA offence are required to be tried by the same court the judge saidSince the allegations in the present complaint were arising from the predicate offence the file in the predicate offence were required to be called for perusal the court addedHowever the power of assignment or transfer of a matter is not vested with this court and is rather the prerogative of the Principal District amp Sessions Judge Rouse Avenue Courts Complex New Delhi the court pointed outThe ED investigation began in 2021 after a metropolitan magistrate in Patiala House courts in Delhi took cognisance of a private complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on June 26 2014The complaint the ED said highlighted a criminal conspiracy by several prominent political figures including the first family of the Congress party led by Sonia her MP son Rahul late Congress leaders Motilal Vora and Oscar Fernandes aside from Dubey Pitroda and a private company Young Indian for their alleged involvement in money laundering in relation to the fraudulent takeover of properties valued over Rs 2000 crore belonging to the Associated Journals Limited AJLThe legal proceedings against the accused have faced challenges but have been upheld by both the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India allowing the investigation to proceed the ED saidAJL is the publisher of the National Herald news platform newspaper and web portal owned by Young Indian Private LimitedCongress leaders Sonia and Rahul are majority shareholders of Young Indian with 38 per cent shares held by each one of them They were questioned for hours by the ED in this case a few years agoThe ED claimed its investigation has conclusively found that Young Indian a private company beneficially owned by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi acquired AJL properties worth Rs 2000 crore for a mere Rs 50 lakh significantly undervaluing its worthYoung Indian and AJL properties were used for generation of further proceeds of crime in the form of bogus donations to the tune of Rs 18 crore bogus advance rent to the tune of Rs 38 crore and bogus advertisements of Rs 29 crore the ED has allegedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoeveratOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params