NEW DELHI: A Delhi court’s refusal to even take cognisance of the Enforcement Directorate’s money laundering complaint in the National Herald case has exposed a procedural gap that has hovered over the investigation since its inception in 2012. The ruling, delivered on December 16, 2025, by Special Judge Vishal Gogne at the Rouse Avenue Court, brought an unexpected reprieve for Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and simultaneously dealt the ED a major setback rooted not in evidence, but in law.
At the heart of the court’s order is a simple but critical legal requirement: a money laundering prosecution must stem from a “scheduled offence” backed by a police FIR or a complaint from a competent investigative authority. The judge noted that the ED’s long-running case had no such foundation. Instead, the agency’s proceedings were sparked by a private complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy in 2012, which the court held could not qualify as the predicate offence needed to trigger PMLA action. This procedural void, the court underlined, made the ED’s complaint untenable. Importantly, the judge did not comment on the substance of the allegations or the financial transactions in question. Rather, the order hinged entirely on the technical scaffolding required for a valid money laundering case.
The lapse was not entirely unknown within the agency. As early as 2014, then ED Joint Director Himanshu Kumar Lal had reportedly warned internally that the investigation could not proceed legitimately without a police-registered FIR. He is said to have written to the CBI urging them to file one. That advice, however, went unheeded. The probe continued for over a decade on the strength of the 2012 private complaint, culminating in a chargesheet filed by the ED in April 2025—a chargesheet now left without a legal foundation.
The underlying allegations relate to the Congress party’s interest-free loan of Rs 90 crore to Associated Journals Limited (AJL), the publisher of the National Herald newspaper. According to the complaint, this loan was later transferred to Young Indian Private Ltd for Rs 50 lakh, resulting in Young Indian acquiring control of AJL’s extensive real estate holdings in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are said to collectively hold 76 per cent of Young Indian’s shares.
Despite the rebuff, the court has kept a narrow window open for the ED. A fresh FIR filed by the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing in October 2025 now provides the agency with a legitimate predicate offence. The judge clarified that the ED is free to continue investigating the matter in connection with this new FIR; future action, including the possibility of a fresh chargesheet, could therefore proceed on this updated footing.
The order has set off sharply contrasting political reactions. The Congress hailed it as a “victory for truth”, arguing that the case had survived on shaky legal ground for years. The BJP, meanwhile, maintained that the matter was “very much alive” and pointed to the new FIR as proof that the investigation remained intact.