The courtroom in Patiala House under Justice Lovleen was jam packed. A reluctant Congress, asked for more time to release its account books for the year 2010-2011. Justice Loveleen then set Friday, April 8 to get Congress to submit its yearly accounts books during the scam interval of 2010-2011 in the National Herald case (NHCase).
The court also asked Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), publisher of National Herald, to produce its accounts for the above mentioned period.
…this case is of how Motilal Vora, the treasurer of Young Indian, asks through AJL whose treasurer is Motilal Vora of Congress whose treasurer too is Vora(!), to give AJL a 90 crore loan.
Metropolitan Lovleen’s strict instructions came after the battery of lawyers representing the Congress party requested the court for more time to check out the March 11 order for making the accounts.
Congress was supposed to have submitted the documents today. At one-point, the attorneys even said that there was only a peon in the AICC office who’d obtained it and the summons was received by them just on Saturday. Senior lawyers RS Cheema, Ramesh Gupta and Badar Mahmood argued saying, “Summons was not clear as to whether it was for 2010, 2011 or for both.” There was no senior leader at that stage to refer it to, the lawyers said, even as they produced the peon as evidence to vindicate their state. The Peon got his “15 minutes of fame.”
Hearing this discussion, plaintiff Subramanian Swamy quipped that the AICC office was a “haunted house” and that these were all smart justifications to delay the process. He urged the magistrate to provide stern directions.
The lawyers also contended that Swamy had already shown AJL’s balance sheets and there is certainly no demand to re-create them again. Lawyers also showed the magistrate printouts of some tweets of Swamy.
We are being taken for a ride. The records summoned are already on the record of the court. It’s just for the objective of marketing that the complainant has filed this charge as he has been ‘tweeting’ concerning this circumstance from his social network account Twitter,” stated RS Cheema.
Swamy countered that the magistrate has requested for the account books of AJL throughout the scam period of 2010-11 and that the balance sheets should be made available in the public domain. He said that Registrar of Business authorities was summoned earlier to verify who the directors in AJL were throughout the applicable period rather than for the point of just checking the balance sheets.
Meanwhile, the Income Tax department submitted files in a sealed cover. Another five Government departments such as Urban Development Ministry and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) have previously submitted the files a week ago.
Motilal Vora, the AICC treasurer and an accused in the case, has already challenged the magistrate’s order summoning Government documents from six departments, with the next hearing in the case scheduled on April 4 in the Delhi High Court. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi have also filed a petition in this regard before the magistrate for seeking a revision of the order.
In an earlier hearing, the magistrate decided to put the Government documents in the sealed cover considering the case being heard in the High Court. Swamy on Monday argued that as there was no stay from the High Court, the sealed cover may be opened, which was objected to by the Congress lawyers.
Others weigh in on today’s events in Patiala Court in the NHCase
Noted political commentator, Swaminathan Gurumurthy observed caustically that there were no records of Congress ever having transferred the 90 crores to AJL – rather these were Black money transactions of Motilal Vora!
So where does this case go from here? Whatever accounts they produce before the court has to match other Government department findings. One can feel the noose gradually tightening around Congress’s neck as they try to justify their actions. NHCase is fast becoming a train wreck as it stumbles towards its logical conclusion. The best one-liner that comes to mind about this case is of how Motilal Vora, the treasurer of Young Indian, asks through AJL whose treasurer is Motilal Vora, of Congress whose treasurer too is Vora(!), a loan of 90 crores.
It will be interesting to see the denouement of this “Vora! Vora! Vora!” case. In this video, Subramanian Swamy details the entire episode of National Herald.
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