National Herald case: Delhi High Court to hear pleas of Rahul, Sonia Gandhi today

The Delhi High Court will hear the pleas of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday against the reopening of their tax assessments regarding the National Herald transactions.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi is not quite happy to see the reopening of his 2011-12 assessment by the Income Tax department. The department says that Rahul did not disclose at that time that he was a director in Young Indian company and an accused in the National Herald case, and hence there will be a reassessment of his income tax.

It has to be mentioned herein that both son and mother, i.e., Rahul and Sonia Gandhi are major stakeholders in Young Indian Pvt Ltd that was incorporated in 2010. For being the major stakeholders, they acquired Associated Journals Limited, which published the National Herald newspaper.

The hearing of Rahul Gandhi's plea in the High court will be today. The last hearing on this plea was on August 8 wherein a bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and AK Chawla refused to grant any interim relief to Rahul. The bench of Justices also refused his counsel's plea to practice a restraint on the media organizations regarding the publishing of news of this case.

Appearing in the court on behalf of the income tax department, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta opposed the issue of an interim order in this case. He also assured the court that Rahul Gandhi will not have to face any sort of force or threat from the department until the next hearing, i.e., today.

Raising the same issue, Sonia Gandhi too has moved to the HIgh court pleading to challenge the reopening of her assessments by the Income Tax Department. In her case as well, the reason for re-opening of the assessment is the same as her son. Her plea is also listed for hearing on Tuesday before the same bench.

The tax department says that Gandhi's shares in Young Indian would lead him to have an income of Rs 154 crore and not Rs 68 lakh as was assessed earlier by it for not knowing his association with the young Indian company.