The National Herald case is back to haunt the Congress’ first family ahead of the upcoming Budget Session of Parliament and in an election year when as many as eight States would go to polls.
In the Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court on Saturday, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy produced the Income Tax Department’s 105-page assessment order against the Gandhi family-controlled company Young Indian to claim that the firm’s actual taxable income was Rs 414 crore, which it concealed and was thus a tax offender.
Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are majority stakeholders in Young Indian, which took over Associated Journals limited that publishes the National Herald newspaper. As per the new rules of the Income Tax Act, the fine for concealing the income is 100-300 per cent of the concealed income plus criminal prosecution, Swamy told reporters later on.
Swamy’s revelations led to heated arguments in the courtroom with the Congress lawyers, led by RS Cheema and Rebecca John, contending that the court should issue notice to Swamy for placing confidential Government documents and called for checking their authenticity.
Swamy claimed that he received the Income Tax order only on Friday at his doorstep along with his newspapers. “Swamy, we have seen your tweets on this. He should not be allowed to place anything as per his convenience and distract the trial,” the Congress lawyers argued.
“This is the Income Tax Order against your clients. Please check with them. You advocates can check with your clients and I am also giving you a copy. Check the veracity with Sonia and Rahul. They got served by the Income Tax Department. I got a copy of it from my newspaper man,” Swamy countered.
Amid the heated argument, Magistrate Ambika Singh ordered that the documents produced by Swamy be kept in a sealed cover. Congress lawyers complained that Swamy has already leaked it to the media.
Swamy said only his legal team has seen the documents which were now placed in a sealed cover and he can’t be blamed if the media gets it. “The media people are capable of getting anything. We are not responsible,” he said. Swamy was assisted by lawyers Roxna Swamy, Ishkaran Bhandari, Yatinder Chaudhary and Dilip Kumar.
With the Congress’ lawyers raising doubts on the veracity of the IT order, Swamy produced another set of documents submitted by Sonia in the Supreme Court in the National Herald case. “I came to know about the details of these documents recently only. This is the exact documents I wanted for trial. Sonia in her affidavit in the Supreme Court said these are true documents. So let her come to court and admit these are true documents or face perjury, if the documents are wrong,” said Swamy filing another application in this regard.
“Sonia has to testify these documents,” said Swamy. After 50 minutes of arguments and counters, the Magistrate adjourned the case to March 17, asking Congress lawyers to reply on Swamy’s petition for testifying the documents submitted by Sonia in the Supreme Court.