New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate Saturday said it has served notices to take possession of immovable assets worth Rs 661 crore that it had attached as part of a money laundering probe linked to Congress-controlled National Herald newspaper and the Associated Journals Limited (AJL).
The federal probe agency said in a statement that it has served the relevant documents to the respective registrar of properties where the assets are located.
Simultaneously, the notices have been affixed at “conspicuous part of these properties” located at Herald House at ITO (5A, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg) in Delhi, in the Bandra(E) area (Plot No 2, Survey No 341) of Mumbai and the AJL building located at Bisheshwar Nath Road (Property No.1) in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, on Friday.
The notices primarily seek vacation of the premises to be taken over by the ED.
“A notice… has also been served to Jindal South West Projects Limited which occupies the 7th, 8th, and 9th floors at Herald House, Bandra (E), Mumbai, to transfer the rent/lease amount every month in favour of the director, Directorate of Enforcement,” it said.
The action has been taken under Section (8) and Rule 5(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) that talks about the procedure of taking possession of assets attached by the ED and then confirmed by the adjudicating authority (of the PMLA).
These immovable assets worth Rs 661 crore, apart from shares of AJL worth Rs 90.2 crore, were attached by the ED in November 2023 to “secure the proceeds of crime and to prevent the accused form dissipating the same.” The Adjudicating Authority confirmed this order in April last year. According to the ED, the total “proceeds of crime” in the case was Rs 988 crore.
The Congress had earlier termed the investigation “petty vendetta tactics” and dubbed the ED a “coalition partner” of the BJP.
The ED investigation began in 2021 after the Metropolitan Magistrate at Patiala House Courts in Delhi took cognisance of a private complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on June 26, 2014.
The complaint, the ED said, highlighted a “criminal conspiracy” by several prominent political figures, including the first family of the Congress party led by Sonia Gandhi, her MP son Rahul Gandhi, apart from late Congress leaders Motilal Vora and Oscar Fernandes and also Suman Dubey, Sam Pitroda and a private company Young Indian for alleged involvement in a money laundering scheme related to the fraudulent takeover of properties valued over Rs 2,000 crore belonging to the AJL.
“The 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 said.
AJL is the publisher of the National Herald news platform (newspaper and web portal) and it is owned by Young Indian Private Limited.
Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi 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 back.
The 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 2,000 crore for a mere Rs 50 lakh, significantly undervaluing its worth.
“Young 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 alleged.
