Congress leadership has launched a website of the now defunct National Herald newspaper on November 14 – birth anniversary of founder Jawaharlal Nehru. The website http://www.nationalheraldindia.com/ is claimed as the digital edition of the paper, and is seen as an attempt to beg mercy from the trial court in BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s watertight case against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi with fraud, cheating and financial misappropriation charges. In this day and age, it is so easy to create a website and put a name on it and claim that it is newspaper which is what AJL appears to have done.
Here the question is the role of Young Indian, a private company floated Sonia and Rahul Gandhi with 38 percent of shares each to dubiously acquire the more than 1000 shareholders…
“Associated Journals Limited”, a company founded in 1937 by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, has launched the beta version of its English Website – www.nationalheraldindia.com starting today, November 14, 2016.
“In keeping with the changing times, the newspaper group resumes phased publication as a multi-media outlet with a strong digital presence. The digital website will follow the same editorial vision and principles as that of our Founder, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It remains committed to furthering the values it has always cherished and the best values of the Freedom Movement – that of building a modern, democratic, just, equitable, liberal and socially harmonious nation, free of sectarian strife,” said the AICC Press Release.
Here the question is the role of Young Indian, a private company floated Sonia and Rahul Gandhi with 38 percent of shares each to dubiously acquire the more than 1000 shareholders owned public limited company Associated Journals Ltd.’s (AJL) assets spanning Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Panchkula, Bhopal and Indore. Another issue is the Congress party’s illegal grant of loan of Rs.90 crores ($13.53 million) to AJL and valuing this loan for just Rs.50 lakhs ($74,000) by Young Indian and dubiously taking over more than 99 percent of the shares of AJL. Questions have been asked if Congress even gave the loan to AJL or was it from a set of dubious shell companies based in Kolkata.
National Herald newspaper became defunct in 2008 and Sonia and Rahul’s newly floated company took over the publishing company AJL in a covert manner in December 2010. When Subramanian Swamy exposed the fraud in November 2012, Congress leadership was parroting that they would soon resume the publishing of the newspaper. The entire lands across India was allotted to AJL by government at throw away prices to publish the newspaper and if the newspaper publishing activity is not doing, the government reserves the right to take back the land.
A crime that has already been committed cannot be condoned and this launch of website is nothing but an argument in court for defending the indefensible crime.
Swamy had already petitioned to Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu to take back the 1000s crore worth land and building in Delhi, citing no newspaper publishing is taking place for the past 8 years. He also sought a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe on the misappropriation of the public property by Sonia and Rahul. Maharashtra and Haryana Governments have already started action on taking back the lands allotted to National Herald.
Somehow, even after Delhi High Court and Supreme Court ratified the prima facie case of cheating, fraud and financial misappropriation found by the trial court, the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has not yet acted. Next hearing of the case is on December 9, where Swamy is expected to resume his arguments for the need of documents from Government and submission of balance sheets and accounts of Congress party during the scam period 2010-2011.
The launching of the website and claiming it as a digital edition is seen as a cover up by Congress leaders to beg mercy in court during the trial. A crime that has already been committed cannot be condoned and this launch of website is nothing but an argument in court for defending the indefensible crime.
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