On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court said it will listen to concluding disputes in July on an appeal by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy soliciting direct proof before the trial court in the National Herald case in which Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and others are involved. Justice Suresh Kumar Kait noted that the pleadings are complete in the case and stated, “renotify at the end of the board for final arguments on July 30.” The high court had earlier given time to the Gandhis and others to register responses on the case. The responses have now been filed.
The Congress leaders were represented through senior advocates R S Cheema and Tarannum Cheema. Swamy told the court that the pleadings are comprehensive and he has also recorded his reply. The high court had on February 22 circulated notices and asked replies of Gandhis, AICC general secretary Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey, Sam Pitroda, and Young Indian (YI) on Swamy’s plea and had stayed the trial court actions in the matter till then. Swamy has transferred the high court against a case court order of February 11 declining his request to lead proof to sue the Gandhis and the other involved in the case. The trial court had said that Swamy’s statement under section 244 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) to lead evidence would be recognized after his examination in the case was completed.
Swamy has asked summoning of several witnesses, including the secretary-general (registry officer) of the Supreme Court, a deputy land and development officer, and a deputy commissioner of Income Tax, and also controls to them to verify specific reports which are part of the matter. In a separate criminal charge in the trial court, the BJP leader had attacked the Gandhis and others of plotting to deceive and misappropriate funds by spending only Rs 50 lakh, through which Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YI) received the right to retrieve Rs 90.25 crore that Associate Journals Ltd, owner of National Herald, owed to the Congress.
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All the seven involved – the Gandhis, AICC treasurer Motilal Vora, AICC general secretary Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey, Sam Pitroda, and YI – had rejected the charges. Actions against Vora waned after his death, while the others were asked by the trial court in 2014 for the claimed offenses of misappropriation of assets, criminal breach of trust, and cheating, read with the criminal plot of the Indian Penal Code.
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