It is a self-inflicted wound. Why would you tinker with the ownership of the Associated Journals Limited, publishers of the now defunct National Herald newspaper, unless you had some ulterior motive? And that, we suspect, was to misappropriate its real estate assets which, according to one calculation, are worth Rs. 5,000 crores. With valuable land and buildings in Mumbai, Delhi, Lucknow, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Indore, Pinjore, etc., AJL was sitting on a goldmine.
Once they rented out the since renovated Herald Building on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi’s Fleet Street, to the Ministry of External Affairs, which runs a passport office from the premises, it was not hard for someone to think of exploiting other such AJL assets for commercial gain. Thus, the fast coming-up commercial complex in Mumbai’s Bandra suburb, land for which was originally allotted at highly subsidised rates by a Congress government for running a Nehru Library and Museum but which had subsequently turned into a pure commercial project. Again, a multi-storey building coming up in Panchkula, on the outskirts of Chandigarh, land for which was given by the Hooda Government in 2005 at a subsidised rate since AJL was running a newspaper.
But Rahul Gandhi said on record some months ago that there was no plan to revive National Herald. Which is why they decided to transfer the assets of AJL into another company, Young India Private Ltd, which is fully controlled by him and his mother who between them hold 76 percent of the shares while the rest are held by family retainers and associates. It is this transfer which first led Subramaniam Swamy to raise the red flag back in 2012. But, predictably, no one took notice since the Congress was in command at the Centre. He followed up with a court complaint a year later. Again, no action.
The change of guard in New Delhi in May 2014 meant that the prescribed legal procedures in such complaints began to be followed, especially when the complainant now was a member of the ruling party. It turned out that the Gandhis had used the tax-exempt donations of the Congress Party to fund the AJL. And in the new entity that they floated, they relied on the black money of a Calcutta-based businessman who had routed the ‘donation’ to the YIL through a hawala operative. All this is now part of investigations.
Besides, the shareholders of AJL, including former law minister and senior lawyer Shanti Bhushan, were kept in the dark when its ownership was surreptitiously transferred into the new entity floated by the Gandhis without following the laid down procedures. The rights of minority shareholders were jeopardised by the Gandhis who hijacked the AJL into a privately controlled company. Given the prima facie evidence of wrongdoing, a lower court in Delhi has summoned the accused, including the mother and son duo, to appear before it on 19th November.
As per the procedure, the accused will be required to furnish bail bonds till such time the case is not disposed of one way or the other. It is for the Gandhis to decide whether they would furnish bail. Failure to do so can result in their being sent to jail. Whether they can garner popular sympathy by spending time in jail in a case of wrongful diversion of public funds and properties into their own closely-held company is open to question.
Let it be noted that last year Arvind Kejriwal had preferred to go to jail rather than furnish bail in a case involving a public cause in the hope that tens of thousands of Delhiites would take to the streets demanding his unconditional release. When nobody bothered, he sheepishly furnished the self-same bail bond. The Gandhis should know that any attempt to sell the broad daylight National Herald heist as a great act of sacrifice would not impress the voters.
Now that Subramaniam Swamy has denied them the opportunity to own a veritable real estate empire, they should cut their losses, and restore the status quo ante in AJL. Otherwise, old shareholders like Shanti Bhushan are waiting in the wings to wage a legal battle to prevent the misappropriation of the huge assets of AJL.
