Plea for National Herald papers junked, relief to Congress

New Delhi: In a huge relief to Congress top brass, a Delhi court dismissed on Monday BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s plea seeking documents from the Congress and Associated Journals Ltd. (AJL) in the National Herald case filed by him against Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others.

Metropolitan magistrate Lovleen rejected Mr Swamy’s application while giving him one last opportunity to submit a list of witnesses in the case in which he has accused the mother-son duo and others of conspiring to misappropriate funds by paying just Rs 50 lakh through which Young Indian Pvt. Ltd. (YI) obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore which AJL owed to the Congress.

The other accused are Motilal Vohra, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda. They have all denied the charges.

On Mr Swamy’s plea, the trial court in its January and March orders had sought documents from the finance ministry, the urban development ministry, the corporate affairs department and the income-tax department, and the 2010-11 balancesheet of the Congress, which were submitted by the party and AJL on April 8.

The two top Congress leaders and others moved the Delhi high court pleading that the documents should not be handed over to Mr Swamy. On July 12, the high court set aside both the orders of the trial court saying they were passed in a “casual manner” and “without application of mind”.

Mr Swamy then filed a fresh application before the trial court seeking summoning of certain documents while the Congress leaders and AJL sought the return of documents, including the balancesheet, which had been submitted in the court.  During the December 9 hearing, the Congress counsel told the court that Mr Swamy was seeking a “fishing and roving enquiry”.