New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday while refusing to quash the proceedings against Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son and party Vice President Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case, granted partial relief by exempting them from personal appearance in the court for the hearing scheduled for February 20 and thereafter.
A bench of Justices J.S. Khehar and C. Nagappan declined to entertain an appeal filed by the Gandhis challenging a Delhi High Court judgment refusing the quash the proceedings.
“Let there be fair trial and we will give you full opportunity to raise all issues before the trial court at the time of framing of charges” the Bench told senior counsel Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi appearing for the petitioners.
The two leaders had appeared in the trial court on December 19, 2015 which granted them bail in the case. The Congress had accused the NDA and the BJP leader Subramanian Swami of political vendetta in pursuing the case. Dr. Swami had accused the Gandhis and four others in the Congress of attempting to illegally acquire real estate worth thousands of crores of rupees belonging to the National Herald, a newspaper founded by Jawaharlal Nehru and now defunct.
