The Enforcement Directorate on Saturday said it served notices to take possession of properties worth Rs 661 crore that it had attached as part of a money-laundering investigation against newspaper National Herald.

The properties are located in Delhi, Mumbai and Lucknow.

The central investigative agency had attached the properties in November 2023 through a provisional attachment order issued in a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The case has been filed against the newspaper’s publisher, Associated Journals Limited and its holding company, Young Indian Private Limited.

Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are majority shareholders of Young Indian, and hold shares of 38% each.

The Enforcement Directorate on April 11 issued notices to Registrars of Property in Delhi, Mumbai and Lucknow as part of the proceedings to take possession of the properties. The agency said the action was taken “after extensive investigation…which revealed signification generation, possession and use of proceeds of crime to the tune of Rs 988 crores”.

The Enforcement Directorate said that the properties were attached “to secure the proceeds of crime and to prevent the accused from dissipating the same”.

In response, Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that “proper remedial action in the courts” will be taken against the agency’s action, The Indian Express reported.

“This is the continuation of the… proceedings where money laundering is alleged with no money movement, no transfers and the mere transfer of shares being wrongly treated as money laundering,” Singhvi said. “This is a consequential order based on the earlier orders and continues to reflect the attempt to over-sensationalise by the government and to harass its political opponents.”

The allegations

In April 2008, the National Herald, which was founded and edited by Jawaharlal Nehru before he became India’s first prime minister, suspended operations as it had incurred a debt of over Rs 90 crore.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy filed a complaint against the newspaper in 2012, alleging that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi set up Young Indian Private Limited to buy the debt using the funds from the party.

Swamy alleged that Young Indian 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 Congress has claimed that there was no money exchange and only conversion of debt into equity took place to pay off dues like salaries.