The long-defunct newspaper National Herald, founded by Jawaharlal Nehru, was rightly seen as a vehicle for ideas that the Congress party stood for, and also as the party’s unofficial mouthpiece even when it was edited by the legendary Chalapathi Rau, who could take pot-shots at Nehru himself.
Though closely linked to Nehru and his party, it was clear that the Herald was no one’s private property. Unfortunately, that impression was technically eroded when the huge debt owed by the once famous paper was taken over by a newly floated private company, 76 per cent of whose shares are owned by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and the remaining by prominent individuals linked to them or to the Congress.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy seized on this and filed a case accusing the Gandhis of using the private company to appropriate the properties owned by the Herald (or the company to which the title belonged). It is hard to see the Gandhis as guilty individuals intent on embezzlement, as the high court judge has colourfully sought to suggest even while directing that the matter be taken for trial to find out the truth. Judges really need to be careful with language and avoid purple prose, for people’s reputations can be at stake.
That said, however, the Gandhis and others should have just appeared before the trial court in the first place — like any ordinary person — instead of going to the Delhi high court to seek exemption from personal appearance, which in any case was refused. It is just as well that the Gandhis did not proceed to the Supreme Court with the same plea.
Since Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, his family have acted aloof and remote, although they have led a major political party which ran the government for 10 years at the Centre, and this has been part of their undoing in the public mind. In an open democracy, people do not like their leaders to act high and mighty and distant.
Whatever the technicalities, the company that took over the National Herald debts is a Section 25 company, an entity dedicated to high public purposes and not to make personal profits. This suggests that the idea of personal “criminality”, to which the high court judge alluded, appears deeply misplaced. Since it is Dr Swamy, the well-known political litigant, at work, it is probable that politics is also at work. Nevertheless, since the matter is before a trial magistrate, the process should be completed expeditiously. The Gandhis feel they are victim of a political vendetta conducted by the current regime. For politicians, that’s a reasonable enough ground to adopt in the circumstances. They have reacted politically, with the Congress raising the issue vociferously in Parliament. That’s fair enough too. But court procedures do have their sanctity.
