New Delhi, Dec 9 (India Today) : Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi have come out strongly in reaction to the ongoing controversy on the acquisition of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) by a company where the two Gandhis are majority shareholders.

Though a Patiala House court granted interim relief to the two, it fixed December 19 as the next date of hearing in the National Herald case.

Reacting for the first time since the Delhi High Court asked her and her son to appear before the trial court, Sonia Gandhi said, "I am Indira Gandhi's daughter-in-law. I am not afraid of anyone, why should be I upset?"

Congress MPs staged a protest in Parliament against the complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy. They said it's a "politically motivated" case.

Rahul Gandhi told TV cameras, pretty emphatically, that he is facing vendetta politics, "I absolutely see a political vendetta. I will answer them in Parliament. The Centre thinks they can stop me from asking questions about them by vendetta politics. That is not going to happen."

But, what is the National Herald case? Here's the primer:

Subramanian Swamy filed a complaint in 2012 alleging that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi transferred assets worth crores of rupees from Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) to Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YIL). The mother-son duo is said to have cheated and breached trust in the acquisition of AJL by YIL.

Now, what is AJL and YIL?

The National Herald, the erstwhile Congress mouthpiece, was run by Associated Journals while YIL is a private company whose 38 per cent shares each are held by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and the rest by Congress leaders Motilal Vora and Oscar Fernandes.

Swamy claimed the Congress leaders, who are also the YIL board of directors, committed fraud while acquiring AJL through YIL. They gained assets worth Rs 2000 crore and got the publication rights of National Herald and Quami Awaz Newspapers which had very valuable real estate in New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

Apart from Vora and Fernandes, journalist Suman Dubey and technocrat Sam Pitroda have also been named in Swamy's complaint.

Laste year, apart from Sonia and Rahul, the Patiala court had issued summons also to five other Congress leaders including Oscar Fernandes, Motilal Vora and Sam Pitroda.

Swamy said AJL got an interest-free loan of Rs 90.25 crore from the Congress and the loan was not repaid which is a violation of Section 269T of Income Tax Act 1961. But the Congress had transferred the debt to YIL for Rs 50 lakh and when AJL was unable to pay the loan, Motilal Vora, as the AJL chairman, agreed to transfer the company and its assets to YIL.

Vora also held the post of the Congress party's treasurer then.

Swamy said YIL had paid just Rs 50 lakh to obtain the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that AJL owed to the Congress. He claims that the loan given to AJL was "illegal" as it had been taken from party funds.

Summons to Sonia, Rahul

Metropolitan Magistrate Gomati Manocha summoned Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda in June 2014. She said according to the evidence so far, "it appears that YIL was in fact created as a sham or a cloak to convert public money to personal use" to acquire control over Rs 2,000 crore worth of AJL assets. The court noted that all accused persons had allegedly acted "in consortium with each other to achieve the said nefarious purpose/design".

Congress defence

The Congress justified that YIL was created for charity and not for profit. The party claimed that there was "no illegality" in the transaction as it was "merely a commercial transaction" for transferring shares of the company."

The High Court noted that the financial probity of the party was at stake but observed that prima facie the case "evidenced criminality".

The court noted that other shareholders of AJL were not involved in the decision making and those who were involved were the office-bearers of the Congress and were majority shareholders in YIL.

The party raised objections over the complaint filed by Swamy but they were dismissed by the court which said locus standi "cannot be restricted" in corruption cases. The Congress had said the Swamy complaint was "politically motivated".

Latest development

When the case came back to Justice Sunil Gaur of the Delhi High Court after being presented before another bench because of the roster system, the mother-son duo moved the High Court saying that a different treatment is being meted out to the case.

"It is not a mere commercial transaction. It has wider ramifications. How a political party behaves is everyone's concern. It is precisely an act of a political party which is under scanner here," the judge said.