National Herald case: Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi to defend Sonia, Rahul Gandhi

NEW DELHI Senior Congress leaders-cum-top lawyers -- Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi -- will appear as lawyers of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case, filed by BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy. Sources say, the first task of of these two top lawyers will be to try and get a stay from the Delhi High Court to a lower court notice asking the Gandhi to appear in the court later this month.

Meanwhile, The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has started a “verification exercise” on Subramaniam Swamy’s complaint to ED regarding the National Herald case. ED officials are in a fix in the matter as per Prevention of the Money Laundering Act under which ED is supposed to do the probe, a regular case can only be registered if another agency has lodged the matter under a scheduled offence --which is not so in the National Herald case so far. An ED official however said the agency can proceed in the case a court has taken cognisance of the allegations, which is the case in the National Herald matter, though the official termed this a “grey area”. Swamy has submitted a complaint to ED over a fortnight ago following which the ED Director General has now directed the start of a verification exercise into the said complaint. “It is not a preliminary enquiry (PE) as in CBI parlance,” the ED official said.

In a related development, the Delhi High Court on Friday issued notice to BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on a batch of petitions filed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi and others in the Herald case.