ED seals Young Indian office at National Herald premises

New Delhi, Aug 03: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday temporarily sealed the premises of Young Indian (YI) in the Congress-owned National Herald office in Delhi as part of an ongoing money laundering investigation.

It was sealed as there was no one available in the office during the search. "It is hereby ordered that this premise not be opened without prior permission from the Directorate of Enforcement," the notice read.

The temporary seal has been put in order to "preserve the evidence" which could not be collected as authorised representatives were not present during the raids on Tuesday, sources informed PTI.

The rest of the National Herald office is open for use, the sources added.

The initial reports had claimed that the ED had sealed the National Herald office and clarification came later.

It comes a day after the central agency raided the head office of the Congress party-owned National Herald newspaper and 11 other locations as part of an ongoing money laundering investigation, officials said, a week after it questioned Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

The searches have been carried out under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to "gather additional evidence with regard to the trail of funds and they are against those entities who were involved in the National Herald-linked transactions", officials informed PTI on Tuesday.

The action is being undertaken in light of fresh evidence obtained by the ED after the latest questioning of various people, in this case, they said.

The raids come after the probe agency questioned Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her MP son Rahul at its headquarters here. While Sonia Gandhi was questioned for more than 11 hours, spread over three rounds, last month, Rahul Gandhi was probed by the ED for five days, at intervals, clocking over 50 hours in June.

Senior Congress politicians like Mallikarjun Kharge and Pawan Bansal were also questioned by the ED in April.

The National Herald is published by the Associated Journals Ltd. (AJL), and its holding company is Young Indian.

Officers of the federal agency searched the office of the National Herald located in the 'Herald House' building at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg near ITO in central Delhi. The office is registered in the name of AJL.

The ED action in the case was initiated after the agency late last year registered a fresh case under the PMLA after a trial court here took cognisance of an Income Tax department probe against Young Indian based on a private criminal complaint by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in 2013.

Swamy had accused the Gandhis and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds, with Young Indian paying only Rs 50 lakh to obtain the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that Associated Journals Limited owed to the Congress.

In February last year, the Delhi High Court issued a notice to the Gandhis seeking their response to Swamy's plea.

According to the ED, assets worth about Rs 800 crore are "owned" by the AJL and the agency wants to know from the Gandhis how a "not-for-profit company like Young Indian was undertaking commercial activities of renting out its land and building assets".

The Congress party has said that the Income Tax Department has valued AJL's properties at worth about Rs 350 crore.