Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday appeared before the Enforcement Directorate for the fifth day in a money-laundering case related to the National Herald newspaper, ANI reported.
He was questioned for over 10 hours and got a 30-minute break in between, reported PTI.
The Enforcement Directorate began questioning Gandhi in the case on June 13. Since then, the agency has interrogated him for more than 50 hours over five days. On Monday, the agency questioned the Congress leader till midnight.
Unidentified sources told PTI that the recording of his statement in connection with the case is reaching the final leg. Once Gandhi submits his statement and signs on it, the questioning may end.
Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Tuesday said that he had “never seen this kind of hounding” by an investigative agency. “You are the ED, how many questions can you ask?” Singhvi said at a press conference. “How many times can you repeat that question and for how long can you ask that question? What is this Himalayan bundle of questions which never ends?”
Singhvi said that there was nothing constitutional or legal about the Enforcement Directorate’s questioning of the Congress leader.
“Rahul Gandhi has been a consistent unvarying voice against the BJP and Modi government and therefore, his harassment is an act of utter revenge, retribution, retaliation, reprisal, and recrimination,” he said.
The case
The National Herald is published by Associated Journals Limited and owned by Young Indian Private Limited.
In April 2008, the newspaper suspended operations as it had incurred a debt of over Rs 90 crore. Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subramanian Swamy has accused Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi of setting up the firm Young Indian Private Limited to buy the debt using the funds from the Congress.
In his complaint before a trial court, Swamy accused the Gandhis and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate the funds. He has alleged that the Young Indian firm paid only Rs 50 lakh to obtain the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that the Associated Journals Limited owed to the Congress.
The party had loaned the amount to Associated Journals Limited on an interest-free basis, according to court records. The Congress has claimed that there was no money exchange and only conversion of debt into equity took place to pay off dues like salaries.
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