National Herald office at Delhi's ITO, Nehru Bhawan in Lucknow among Rs 752-crore assets attached by ED

The Enforcement Directorate ED on Tuesday said it has attached immovable assets and equity shares worth about Rs 752 crore as part of its ongoing money laundering investigation against the Congresspromoted National Herald newspaper and companies linked to itThe immovable assets that have been attached include the National Heralds office premises at ITO in Delhi the Nehru Bhawan at Mall Avenue near Kaiserbagh in Lucknow and the Herald House in Mumbai sources saidThe provisional attachment order came at a time assembly elections in five states Chhattisgarh Madhya Pradesh Rajasthan Telangana and Mizoram are in progress and the counting of votes is scheduled to be held on December 3The Congress called the agency action as petty vendetta tactics and dubbed the ED a coalition partner of the BJP which it claimed is staring at a certain defeat in the assembly pollsThe federal probe agency alleged in a statement that in this case the shareholders and donors of the Congress were cheated by the officebearers of AJL and the partyA provisional attachment order has been issued by the federal probe agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLA against Associated Journals Ltd AJL and Young Indian YIThe National Herald is published by AJL and owned by Young Indian Private Limited Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are majority shareholders of Young Indian holding 38 per cent shares eachIn the statement the ED said it has issued the order to provisionally attach properties worth Rs 7519 crore in the money laundering case being investigated by it under the PMLAUnder the law such a provisional order has to be approved by the Adjudicating Authority of PMLA in a time period of six months following which the ED can take possession of the attached propertiesInvestigation revealed that Associated Journals Ltd AJL is in possession of proceeds of crime in the form of immovable properties spread across many cities of India such as Delhi Mumbai and Lucknow to the tune of Rs 66169 crore and Young Indian YI is in possession of proceeds of crime to the tune of Rs 9021 crore in the form of investment in equity shares of AJL it saidThe Gandhis Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leaders Pawan Bansal D K Shivakumar Karnataka deputy chief minister and his MP brother D K Suresh were questioned and their statements were recorded by the agency in connection with the case last yearAccording to sources they may be called again for questioning before the ED files a charge sheet in the caseThe money laundering case stems from a court order Metropolitan Magistrate of Delhi that took cognisance of a private complaint against alleged irregularities in the National Heralds affairs on June 26 2014The court had held that seven accused persons and entities including Young Indian prima facie committed offences of criminal breach of trust under various sections of the IPC including cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property dishonest misappropriation of property and criminal conspiracy the ED saidThe accused persons hatched a criminal conspiracy to acquire properties worth hundreds of crores of AJL through a special purpose vehicle Young Indian AJL was given land on concessional rates in various cities of India for the purpose of publishing newspapers the agency saidIt added that AJL closed its publishing operations in 2008 and started using the properties for commercial purposes it allegedIt said AJL had to repay a loan of Rs 9021 crore to All India Congress Committee AICC however AICC treated the said loan of Rs 9021 crore as nonrecoverable from AJL and sold it for Rs 50 lakh to a newly incorporated company Young Indian without any source of income to pay even Rs 50 lakhBy their action the shareholders of AJL as well as donors of Congress Party were cheated by the office bearers of AJL and Congress Party the agency claimedAfter purchasing the loan of Rs 9021 crore from AICC YI demanded either repayment of loan or allotment of equity shares of AJL to it the ED saidAJL it added held an Extraordinary General Meeting EGM and passed a resolution to increase share capital and issue fresh shares worth Rs 9021 crore to YIWith this fresh allotment of shares shareholding of more than 1000 shareholders was reduced to a mere 1 per cent and AJL became a subsidiary company of YI YI also took control over properties of AJL the agency saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever