Guwahati: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a new summons to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi for interrogation in a money laundering case relating to the National Herald case on June 13.
The Congress MP was first summoned on June 2, along with party president Sonia Gandhi, but the Lok Sabha member from Wayanad in Kerala requested a new date since he was out of the country.
According to officials, Rahul Gandhi has been summoned to the government agency’s headquarters in central Delhi on June 13th.
Sonia Gandhi, his mother and Congress president, has been summoned to testify before the agency on June 8.
The case concerns an ED investigation into alleged financial irregularities at the Young Indian, a party-backed company that publishes the National Herald newspaper.
Officials said the agency wants to record Rahul and Sonia Gandhi’s testimonies under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Associated Journals Limited (AJL) publishes the National Herald, which is owned by Young Indian Pvt Limited.
As part of the inquiry, the CBI recently questioned top Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Pawan Bansal.
The interrogation of key Congress leaders and the Gandhi’s is part of the ED’s probe into the promoters of Young Indian and AJL’s shareholding structure, financial transactions, and participation, authorities said.
After a trial court here took cognizance of an Income Tax Department probe into Young Indian Pvt Ltd based on a private criminal complaint filed by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in 2013, the agency filed a new case under the criminal provisions of the PMLA.
The action of the ED was dubbed “vendetta” by the Congress party.
“The Modi government should know that by registering such false and contrived charges, they will be unable to carry out their cowardly plan,” Congress lawmaker Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters earlier this week.