HUA ministry team to visit Herald House tomorrow

A team of the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry will visit the Herald House on Friday and ask the leaseholder to give "peaceful possession" of its premises, failing which proceedings under the PPE Act will be initiated, an official said Thursday.

The development comes after the Delhi High Court dismissed the plea of AJL, publisher of Congress mouthpiece National Herald, challenging the Centre's order to vacate its premises and said there has been "misuse" of lease conditions.

The court held that the entire transaction of transferring shares of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) to Young Indian (YI) company, in which Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi are majority shareholders, was a "clandestine and surreptitious transfer of the lucrative interest in the premises" to YI.

"A two-member team of the ministry will visit Herald House located at ITO on Friday and request AGL to give peaceful possession of its premises.

"If there is no satisfactory assurance, a seven-day eviction notice will be served under the Public Premises (Eviction of unauthorised occupants) (PPE) Act," the official said.

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao upheld the single judge's December order which had dismissed AJL's plea against the Centre's eviction order and had directed it to vacate in two weeks the Herald House in the ITO area in the heart of the capital.