The Patiala House Court, New Delhi, has issued summons to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son and party vice president Rahul Gandhi in connection with the National Herald land grab case on Thursday. The Court has directed them to appear before it on August 7. 

Metropolitian magistrate Gomati Manocha observed: "I have found prima facie evidence against all the accused. The court has directed them to appear before it on August 7."

Apart from the duo, the court also directed five other Congressmen including Oscar Fernandes, Motilal Vora and Sam Pitroda. 

The court issued summons on a complaint filed by a senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy. The National Herald newspaper was established in 1938 by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. Due to poor management and unscrupulous marketing strategy, it was finally shut down in 2008. The case entails embezzlement of funds of the now-defunct newspaper.

Stressing on the fact that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi's signatures prove their involvement in the National Herald case, Swamy said it involves Rs 1600 crore worth of property belonging to the National Herald, which was usurped by Congress leaders using fake papers. He claimed that the party had even sanctioned Rs 90 crore loans to the newspaper. 

Swamy alleged in his petition that the accused have deceitfully created a closely held private company to “usurp over Rs 1600 crore worth properties” of the public limited company, Associated Journals Limited (AJL), the publisher of ‘National Herald’ using Rs 90 crore fund of the All India Congress Committee. 

“Sonia Gandhi as President of the Congress Party, along with other party office bearers Rahul Gandhi, Motilal Vora and Oscar Fernadez and who together owned 100% of the equity in Young India, wrote off the loan of Rs 90 crore obtained from the party as irrecoverable.”

“Thus, by a mere payment of Rs. 50 lakhs by Young India, the company acquired the complete ownership of AJL. From the Balance Sheet it can be seen that contrary to the claim of the AJL Board, the AJL had real estate assets of at least Rs. 2000 crores, including a multi-story building in a prime locality of New Delhi on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg,” the petition stated.

“AJL has real estate in Lucknow, Bhopal, Indore, Mumbai, Panchkula, Patna and other places. A conservative estimate of its real estate worth is placed at Rs 5,000 crores, all provided originally by various central and state governments after 1947 for facilitating newspaper printing, and publishing,” Swamy said in his petition.