Even as the Congress claims the Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi-floated company Young Indian was meant for “non-profit and campaign on secularism”, media reports appearing on Sunday exposed that the new company earns a whopping Rs87 lakh as rent per month from the Ministry of External Affairs and Tata Consultancy Services. And this has been continuing for the past three years.

According to NDTV, the six-storied Herald House, headquarters of the erstwhile National Herald newspaper, rented two floors to Ministry of External Affairs to run Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) for Rs60 lakh per month. The third floor was rented out to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which provides technical support to PSK for Rs27 lakh per month.

According to the report, the Ministry officials said the choice was the building was decided by TCS. But TCS spokesperson refuted the Ministry’s claim and ascertained that the decision of selecting the Herald House was taken by the Ministry in 2011.

The National Herald case hit the headlines when New Delhi Magistrate Court summoned Sonia, Rahul and other Congress leaders Motilal Vora and Oscar Fernadez as accused in a case filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy. The court found them prima facie guilty and asked to appear on August 7.

Swamy had charged Sonia and Rahul for floating a company called Young Indian to acquire Rs2,000 crore worth assets of another company called The Associated Journals limited (AJl), the publishers of National Herald newspaper in dubious ways. The AJl has properties in  New Delhi, Mumbai, lucknow, Bhopal, Indore and Panchkula. The funds of the Congress used to acquire AJl by Young Indian. As per Income Tax Act, parties are barred from funding companies. Previous week the Income Tax Department had sent notices and Sonia had termed the development as “political witchhunt” by BJP.