National Herald Case: ED attaches properties worth Rs 751.9 cr

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday issued an order to provisionally attach properties worth Rs 751.9 cr of Associated Journals Ltd. (AJL) and Young Indian (YI) in connection with an alleged money-laundering case, the federal agency has claimed.

"ED initiated money-laundering investigation on the basis of process issued by Court of Metropolitan Magistrate of Delhi after taking cognizance of a private complaint...The Court held that seven accused persons including M/s Young India, prima facie committed offences of criminal breach of trust under section 406 of IPC, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property u/s 420 of IPC, dishonest misappropriation of property u/s 403 and criminal conspiracy u/s 120B of IPC," the central probe agency claimed in a statement.

The ED claimed that the accused persons hatched a criminal conspiracy to acquire properties worth hundreds of crores of AJL through a special purpose vehicle, M/s Young Indian.M/s AJL was given land on concessional rates in various cities of India for the purpose of publishing newspapers.

"AJL closed its publishing operations in 2008 and started using the properties for commercial purposes. AJL had to repay a loan of Rs 90.21 crore to the All India Congress Committee (AICC).

"However, AICC treated the said loan of Rs 90.21 Crore as non-recoverable from AJL and sold it for Rs 50 lakh to a newly incorporated company M/s Young Indian without any source of income to pay even Rs 50 lakh. By their action, the shareholders of AJL as well as donors of Congress Party were cheated by the office bearers of AJL and Congress Party," the ED claimed in its statement.

The probe agency further said "its investigation revealed that after purchasing the loan of Rs 90.21 Crore from AICC, YI demanded either repayment of loan or allotment of equity shares of AJL to it. AJL held an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) and passed a resolution to increase share capital and issueresh shares worth Rs 90.21 Crore to YI."

"With this fresh allotment of shares, the shareholding of more than 1000 shareholders was reduced to a mere 1 per cent and AJL became subsidiary company of YI. YI also took control over properties of AJL," the ED claimed.

Further investigation is under progress, it added. (UNI)