Shanti Bhushan to enter National Herald battle

Bhushan had termed the transfer of shares from AJL to YIL was “wholly illegal” and said he will challenge this whole transaction in the court. Bhushan clarified to Firstpost on Saturday that his father Vishwamitra held five preference shares in the company that has come back to torment Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and its vice president Rahul Gandhi. The Gandhis are the directors of Young Indian and own 76% and the remaining shares are owned by Motilal Vohra, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda. Three of them have passed away.

The Delhi High Court on December 7 had rejected the pleas of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi for quashing the summons against them in the National Herald case. “I have initiated the process for substitution of his legal heirs as owners of those shares”, Bhushan told TOI.

He also added, “This process of getting signatures of legal heirs will take some time”.

Have any assets been transferred from The Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) to Young Indian (YI)?

The AJL has total assets worth about Rs 5,000 crore, media reports said. Swamy claims that Sonia and Rahul floated Young Indian which bought Associated Journals Limited, publisher of National Herald and the company was shut down by Sonia. “They would want the assets of National Herald to be used for the betterment of the country”, he added.

He also asked, “If Associated Journal Ltd had problem in paying off Rs 90 crore debt, why weren’t some assets of the company sold to pay off the debt?”

Earlier, accusing the BJP of running a political vendetta against it, the Congress said it did not do anything illegal in the National Herald newspaper case and will fight it out in the court of law. “The party helped it by giving it loans as and when required, and there was nothing wrong in it”, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal said.