AJL eviction order due to cardinal breaches of lease agreement: Government

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it ordered eviction of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) from the National Herald premises because of cardinal breaches of lease agreement — no press activity in the premises for last 10 years and transfer of ownership to Young Indian in which top Congress leaders Rahul and Sonia Gandhi are majority stake-holders.
Responding to a petition filed by AJL challenging a Delhi High Court judgement upholding the eviction notice of October 30, 2018, the Land & Development Office (L&DO) in its affidavit cited the clause in the perpetual lease for the plot prohibiting “sale, mortgage or gift” of the plot without obtaining prior approval in writing of the lessor (Union government).
It said Young Indian was founded on November 28, 2010 with Sam Pitroda and Suman Dubey as the sole shareholders. On January 22, 2011, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi became dominant share holders (both having 38% shares each) along with Motilal Vohra and Oscar Fernandes (holding 12% shares each).
About the other lease agreement violation, L&DO said, “The dominant purpose of the lease in the present case has been lost. Closure of National Herald newspaper, not just for a brief period, but for long period, makes it clear that no press activity was being carried out by AJL.”
While challenging the Delhi HC order, AJL had said the Centre, for political reasons, has singled out AJL for eviction proceedings on the ground that the premises were being used only for commercial purposes when most of the other lease-holders of plots on the same road are doing the same thing — renting out floors for commercial exploitation of the buildings.
AJL had said the HC irrelevantly looked into extraneous issues — incorporation of Young Indian, within five days of its formation INC assigning it Rs 90 crore loan and later transfer of shares of Young Indian to Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Oscar Fernandes, Sam Pitroda and Suman Dubey — and made an unnecessary comment that the “transaction was not permissible in law, fraudulent in nature, against public interest and that the entire transaction was a clandestine and surreptitious transfer of the lucrative interest in the Herald premises to Young India”.
^[1][2][3]

References

1. ^{^} AJL (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
2. ^{^} Delhi High Court (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
3. ^{^} Sam Pitroda (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

from India News | Latest News Headlines & Live Updates from India - Times of India https://ift.tt/2XnE3BE