Allegations against Sonia, Rahul patently false: Congress

Amid the raging row over the National Herald case, Congress on Sunday asserted the allegations and "insinuations" against party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were "deliberately orchestrated", "patently false" and "defamatory" as they have "not received a rupee". Senior party leaders and legal luminaries P Chidambaram and Ashwani Kumar insisted that all transactions in question are legal and expressed confidence that both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will be "fully vindicated" through the judicial process.

"(There is) nothing wrong in this transaction. In fact, by putting a non-profit company as the dominant shareholder, we have ensured that not one rupee from the assets can go to any private beneficiary," Chidambaram said ,defending the move to transfer the shares of Associated Journals Limited (AJL) to Young India, a company of which Sonia and Rahul are major shareholders.

Sonia and Rahul have nothing to worry because "they have not received a rupee benefit", he said, while raising questions over the government's role saying it had acted hastily on a "private complaint" to reopen a shut case. He claimed the assets of AJL are now "doubly secure" as a non-profit company is the dominant shareholder.

Kumar, in a statement here, said there are "incontrovertible facts" which make it obvious that "allegations and insinuations against the Congress leadership are deliberately orchestrated, are patently false and defamatory. All transactions in question are entirely legal. In this context, he listed some details of the case as well as the Delhi High Court's December 7 judgment which, according to him, "held that no question of criminality, even upon a prima facie basis arises at this stage".

He reproduced Para 36 of the judgement as saying: '……It needs no reiteration that this is not the stage to even prima facie opine that the ingredients of any of the alleged offences exist to justify putting petitioners on trial or not.

Any observation made in this regard by the trial court or this court shall have no bearing when the case of the petitioners is considered at the charge state.'

Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have been summoned by a Delhi court in connection with the case on December 19 after the High Court refused to agree to their plea for personal exemption.

This issue led to stalling of Parliament for most of the last week with the Congress creating uproar, alleging "political vendetta".

About the uproar created by Congress over the National Herald issue, Chidambaram said, "We are not criticising the judge but we are entitled to criticise the judgement and that's what we are doing."

He said there is a summon and the Gandhis will appear "but that doesn't mean they have lost their right to question the judgement."

The Congress leader criticised the Delhi High court judgement which rejected the plea of Rahul, Sonia and others against summons.

"I am criticising the judgement on its own merits. The judgement says, somethings smack of criminality but (says).... its no part of the exercise to even allude to which section is attracted. Now that's incomprehensible judgement according to me," he added.

Chidambaram emphasised that the logjam in Parliament has nothing to do with the National Herald case but said the conduct of the government in the matter raised suspicions as "it allowed a closed enquiry to be re-opened at the instance of a private complainant" after sacking the Enforcement Director. "The private complainant's letter is acted, haste poste haste, the ED is sacked and the enquiry is opened," he said, adding "Doesn't that raise suspicions in the minds of the people?"

With regard to goods and services tax (GST) Bill, he said Congress considers it a progressive measure provided its "legitimate concerns" are met by the government. He said the government is yet to respond to the concerns raised by Congress at the Prime Minister's tea meeting.

"The last I heard about the GST is that the Prime Minister called a meeting. We have given our concerns in very precise terms," he said.

The government, he said, had promised to come back with revised formulations which it has not done yet and the Congress is waiting for the response.

"GST was our idea.. Gujarat and MP opposed it," the former Finance Minister said, adding he is "happy that those who had held this Bill are now supporting it."

Chidambaram was asked about charges of vendetta levelled by Congress leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad in Parliament. To this, he said if there has to be criticism of the government, then Parliament is the place.