Herald case: Court order on December 26 on summoning Congress documents

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court would pronounce on December 26 its order on whether to summon certain documents from Congress party and Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), as sought by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, in the National Herald case filed against Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others.

Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen reserved his order after hearing the arguments of complainant Swamy and the accused, also including Congress leaders like Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda.

During the hearing today, the counsel appearing for the accused told the court that Swamy was seeking a "fishing and roving enquiry" in the case by calling for the documents from the party and the AJL as he wanted to make out a "new case" against them.

Swamy, however, termed the allegation as baseless and said his demand was legitimate.

In the present application, Swamy has sought documents relating to a loan given by the Congress to the AJL, the holding firm of the National Herald, saying these were necessary for the purpose of trial.

Swamy has accused the Gandhis and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying just Rs 50 lakh by which Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YI) obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore which AJL owed to the Congress party. All accused have denied the allegations levelled against them.