After a Delhi court rejected as “a fishing inquiry” the plea of Subramanian Swamy seeking a direction to the Congress and Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) to produce certain records related to the National Herald case, the BJP leader said he would move the Supreme Court on the matter.
In what came as relief to Congress President Sonia and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, the Patiala House court on Monday rejected Swamy’s plea saying he “seemed to enlarge the scope of present proceedings”.
Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen, meanwhile, gave Swamy his last opportunity to submit the list of his witnesses in the case lodged against Gandhis and some other Congress leaders, and fixed the matter on February 10 for hearing arguments on framing of charges.
“At the very outset, this court must observe that by using the terms ‘verify’/’see’/’investigate’ (in application) the complainant (Swamy) admits that he himself is not aware of the contents of the said documents.”
“In these circumstances, the prayer of the complainant is nothing but a fishing enquiry which is not permitted under the law. This court feels that by seeking the above documents the complainant seems to enlarge scope of present proceedings,” the court said.
The court also said that most of the documents sought “do not seem relevant in view of context of present allegations” and “do not seem to be connected to the facts required to be proved by the complainant“.
Swamy, in his private criminal complaint, has accused Gandhis and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying just ₹50 lakh through which Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YI) obtained the right to recover ₹90.25 crore, which AJL owed to the Congress. Swamy has sought documents relating to a loan given by the Congress to the AJL, the holding firm of the National Herald, saying these were necessary for the purposes of trial in the case.