ED issues new summon to Rahul Gandhi, request to appear on June 13

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a new summons to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi for interrogation in a money laundering case relating to the National Herald case on June 13.

The Congress MP was first summoned on June 2, along with party president Sonia Gandhi, but the Lok Sabha member from Wayanad in Kerala requested a new date since he was out of the country.

According to officials, Rahul Gandhi has been summoned to the government agency's headquarters in central Delhi on June 13th.

Sonia Gandhi, his mother and Congress president, has been summoned to testify before the agency on June 8.

The case concerns an ED investigation into alleged financial irregularities at the Young Indian, a party-backed company that publishes the National Herald newspaper.

The agency, officials said, wants to record the statements of Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The National Herald is published by Associated Journals Limited (AJL) and owned by Young Indian Pvt Limited.

The agency recently questioned senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Pawan Bansal as part of the investigation.

The questioning of the senior Congress leaders and the Gandhis is part of the ED's investigation to understand the share holding pattern, financial transactions and role of the promoters of Young Indian and AJL, officials had said.

The agency registered a fresh case under the criminal provisions of the PMLA after a trial court here took cognisance of an Income Tax Department probe against Young Indian Pvt Ltd on the basis of a private criminal complaint filed by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in 2013.

The Congress party had called the ED action as "vendetta".

"The Modi government should know that by registering such fake and fabricated cases, they cannot succeed in their cowardly conspiracy," Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi had told reporters early this week.