Court dismisses Swamy’s plea in National Herald case

A Delhi court today dismissed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking certain documents from the Congress party and Associated Journals Ltd in the National Herald case filed by him against Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Vice President Rahul Gandhi and others.

Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen rejected Swamy's application while giving him the last opportunity to submit the list of complainant witnesses in the case in which he has accused the Gandhis and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying just ₹50 lakh through which Young Indian Pvt Ltd obtained the right to recover ₹90.25 crore which AJL owed to the Congress.

Besides the Gandhis, other accused—Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda—have denied the allegations levelled against them.

The court has now put up the matter on February 10 for pre-charge proceedings.

At an AICC press briefing at Congress headquarters in Delhi on Monday afternoon, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh had this to say in response to a journalists’ question about today’s hearing. “It was inevitable that Mr Swamy will be exposed at some time or the other. I have not seen the detailed court judgment but I’ve just seen the headlines. I don’t think at any point of time, there was any doubt that there was some question mark on the Associated Journals episode. I think this was a whole mountain of lies and deceit that was built up by Dr Subramaniam Swamy for his own political survival. And not only did he survive but thanks to this he became a member of the Rajya Sabha also.”

With inputs from NH National Bureau.