India’s Enforcement Directorate told Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Special Court this week that Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi engineered a scheme to seize control of Associated Journals Ltd. (AJL), publisher of the defunct National Herald newspaper, through a not-for-profit entity called Young Indian. Appearing for the agency on 2 July, Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju said the Gandhis held a 76 per cent stake in Young Indian, which settled a ₹90-crore loan owed by AJL to the Congress party but paid only about ₹50 lakh in cash. The move allegedly gave Young Indian—and by extension the Gandhis—access to AJL properties that the ED values at roughly ₹2,000 crore. Raju added that donor statements indicated funds were provided "to oblige Congress leaders," and the agency may still name the party itself as an accused. The ED has filed a chargesheet under sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against the Gandhis, several former Congress functionaries, Young Indian and Dotex Merchandise Pvt. Ltd., claiming the defendants enjoyed at least ₹988 crore in illicit proceeds. The agency previously attached AJL assets worth ₹661 crore. Defence counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing Sonia Gandhi on 4 July, dismissed the prosecution as "truly strange" and "unprecedented," arguing no property changed hands and that the restructuring simply rendered AJL debt-free. He questioned the ED’s jurisdiction and its decision to act more than a decade after the transactions, portraying the probe as politically driven. Special CBI Judge Vishal Gogne has scheduled daily hearings through 8 July and will next hear arguments concerning Rahul Gandhi. The court has not indicated when it will rule on whether to take cognisance of the chargesheet.