Case against Gandhis: Enforcement Directorate searches Herald House, 12 other spots | India News

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday carried out searches at Herald House in central Delhi’s Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg besides a dozen other locations in connection with the National Herald money laundering case in which Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul, have recently been questioned.
The searches at Herald House are significant as it is also the registered offices of both Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) — the owner of National Herald brand, with its properties across cities estimated to be worth over Rs 800 crore — and Young Indian that has now taken over AJL. The Gandhis are majority shareholders in Young Indian.

The alleged transfer of AJL to Young Indian by the Congress for a mere consideration of Rs 50 lakh is at the core of investigation for which top functionaries of Congress have been repeatedly questioned.
Senior Congress leaders, including Sonia and Rahul, and the party’s present treasurer Pawan Bansal have said all the dealings and transactions among the Congress, the AJL and the YI were known only to former treasurer Motilal Vora.
Rahul was questioned for over 55 hours and Sonia for more than 11 hours at the ED headquarters recently during which they took identical stands, according to sources, telling the ED probe team that former treasurer Vora was alone responsible for all the transactions.

Congress, the erstwhile owners of the Herald building, had partly rented it out to the ministry of external affairs which operates its Passport Seva Kendra there.
Though the building was rented out to the MEA during the UPA regime, the PSK continues to function from the premises even today despite the fact that the government has begun the process of withdrawal of lease of the property from AJL for violating lease conditions and deriving commercial gains from the premises.