Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi have objected to the summoning of new documents in the National Herald case. In a six-page recent reply to the notice issued by Magistrate lovleen, the Congress leaders said petitioner Subramanian Swamy is on "fishing and roving" enquiry and is attempting to open new case against them with the new documents.
The Congress leaders also objected to summoning of Income Tax statements of Congress party during the scam period 2010-2011. Citing several judgments, they said this was against the confidentiality norms of Income Tax act. The joint reply was filed by Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandez, Suman Dubey and, Sam Pitroda along with Sonia and Rahul
"That the application preferred by the Complainant (Swamy) under Sec 91 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) is vague and devoid of material particulars and is on in the nature of fishing and roving enquiry which is not permissible in the law. Courts have time and again deprecated attempts to use Sec 91 CrPC for such a roving and fishing inquiry," said the Congress leaders.
"The Complainant through this application is seeking to call for documents without divulging their necessity and desirability on the basis of the allegations made by him in his complaint. Thereby the complainant seeks to access documents in an attempt to make out a new case. The endeavour of the Complainant of not providing a list of witness also shows the malafide nature of the current petition," said the Congress leaders.
The arguments on this matter is scheduled on October 4. The earlier order of trial court to summon the documents was quashed by the Delhi High Court, citing that the accused were not heard before passing the order.