List of witnesses in National Herald case filed

The Gandhis and other accused -- Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda -- have denied the allegations levelled against them.

New Delhi, February 10: BJP MP Subramanian Swamy today submitted a list of witnesses and other evidences before a Delhi court in the National Herald case filed by him against Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders.

The counsel for Swamy filed the documents before Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen, who had on December 26 last year given him the last opportunity to submit the list. After Swamy's counsel, advocate Dilip Kumar, submitted the documents, the court asked him to supply the same to the accused, to which he agreed. The list includes the name of eleven persons including All India Congress Committee's General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi, several officials of Associated Journals Ltd and government officials.

The court has now put up the matter for March 25 for the next hearing. Swamy, in his private criminal complaint, has accused the Gandhis and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying just Rs 50 lakh, through which Young Indian Pvt Ltd obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore which AJL owed to the Congress. In a relief to Sonia and Rahul, the court had earlier rejected "as fishing inquiry" a plea of Swamy seeking a direction to Congress party and Associated Journals Ltd to produce certain records relating to the case. The court had said that Swamy "seemed to enlarge the scope of present proceedings".

The Gandhis and other accused -- Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda -- have denied the allegations levelled against them. The court had summoned the accused persons, besides YI on June 26, 2014. On December 19, 2015, it had granted bail to Sonia, Rahul, Vora, Fernandes and Dubey, who had appeared before it pursuant to summons.

Pitroda was granted bail on February 20, 2016 when he had appeared in the court. Sonia, Rahul, Vora (AICC Treasurer), Fernandes (AICC General Secretary), Dubey and Pitroda were summoned for alleged offences under section 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) read with section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

PTI