National Herald case: 'Strange, unprecedented,' Sonia Gandhi's counsel tells court; cites 'Hamlet'

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Friday criticised the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) money laundering case against her in connection with the National Herald, calling it “truly a strange case”. Her lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing in a Delhi court, argued that the ED’s case made no sense and compared the situation to staging Hamlet “without the Prince of Denmark”.

“This is truly a strange case. More than strange. Unprecedented. This is an alleged case of money laundering, without any property, without use or projection of property,” Singhvi submitted before Special Judge Vishal Gogne.


He also pointed to the long delay in ED’s action. “They did nothing for several years and instead picked up a private complaint,” Singhvi said.

“They are, obviously, people associated with the Congress. To have the National Herald in a body not associated with the Congress would be worse than having Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark,” he told the court.

The ED has accused Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, along with Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey, Sam Pitroda, and others, of laundering money in the alleged fraudulent takeover of assets worth over Rs 2,000 crore belonging to Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), the publisher of the now-defunct National Herald newspaper.

The ED in its argument had claimed that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi were “beneficial owners” of Young Indian, a not-for-profit company that took over AJL's assets after the Congress party gave a Rs 90 crore interest-free loan to AJL. That debt, the ED argues, was fraudulently converted into equity in favour of Young Indian, giving it ownership of AJL’s assets.

On July 3, ASG Raju told the court that the entire operation was orchestrated to favour Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, who together held 76% shares in Young Indian. “They (Young Indian) didn’t even have the wherewithal to pay Rs 50 lakh. During this time, Rahul and Sonia were directors of the company along with Sam Pitroda and others,” Raju said. He described it as a “classic case of money laundering” where fabricated rent receipts and fraudulent payments were used to siphon off funds.

Singhvi, further argued that the entire purpose of Young Indian was to make AJL debt-free. “Every company is entitled under law and does, every day, make their companies get free by a variety of instruments. So you take away the debt and assign it to another entity. So this company becomes debt free,” he said.