When Arun Jaitley tried to give free hand to Gandhi’s on The National Herald Fraud

In this off-the-cuff remark of his, the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley shows his ignorance of Finance as well as the Law. Speaking to a TV channel in August 2014, he said that “The Congress could simply return the loan and the matter could end. There is no truth to media reports of an Enforcement Directorate inquiry in the Herald case”. Why is this wrong? Read on…

There were 1067 shareholders (many of whom were freedom fighters and not all were Congress-persons) in Associate Journals Limited (AJL), the publisher of National Herald and other newspapers. A shareholder in a company is an owner in that company. Jawaharlal Nehru had only 1 share of Rs. 10 value in it (probably one of the least owners in terms of shares). Without informing all the shareholders (or their descendants) Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have made the company their own.

• What they did is plain theft of a Rs. 2000 crore property that AJL owned. The total dues owed by the National Herald newspaper including unpaid salaries/ rents etc. came to Rs. 90 crores. AJL could have easily auctioned off one of their properties to raise the amount and pay it back to Congress.
• Instead they wrote off the debt, claimed that AJL is no longer a viable company and transferred its assets to a new company called Young Indian (in which both Sonia and Rahul have 38% ownership each).
• The same set of persons are found in all three entities – Motilal Vora, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Oscar Fernandes.
• So Motilal Vora, the treasurer of Young Indian goes to talk to Motilal Vora, the treasurer of the Congress Party and says that he will buy the assets of AJL. Now the same Motilal Vora, treasurer of Congress Party talks to Motilal Vora of AJL and says that you cannot pay the dues and therefore sell your assets to Young Indian.

Frauds in this deal

1. Congress party, being a Political Party enjoys tax-free status. It cannot use its finances to lend money for business purposes.
2. Every taxpayer has a right to question this motive of Congress Party because it is misusing its funds, which it collected as donations for party activities.
3. AJL got all the properties for cheap in the first place, because they were going to publish newspapers. If that activity is going to cease, then they have to return that property back to the Government, not sell it off cheaply.

With the new revelations of Income Tax levying a fine over Young India’s income of Rs. 414 crores and the inquiries into the source of money that was used to pay Associated Journals Limited (AJL), this is now a full-fledged scandal. Congress will try every trick in the book to delay proceedings but they have come up against a crusader against corruption and this case will go to its logical end.

Video of Dr Swamy speaking in Aap ki Adaalat of Rajat Sharma(India Tv) on National Herald Case.