Will Shanti Bhushan lead to Sonia, Rahul's eventual fall in National Herald case

Using an analogy from the game of chess, if taking of the National Herald dealings to court by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy was "check" for the Congress party's first family, former Union law minister Shanti Bhushan's entry may well prove to be "checkmate". So far, the battery of eminent lawyers such as former Union minister Kapil Sibal and Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi had put up their greatest line of defence that Swamy did not have a locus standi in the case.

In an interview to The Times of India, Sibal claimed that Swamy was not a shareholder in Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), which published the National Herald newspaper. He argued that neither any shareholder of AJL nor any Congressman has complained. Subramanian Swamy, the complainant in the case, belongs to BJP, he said.

But the main defence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi has been effectively demolished with Bhushan revealing that his father had taken 300 shares of AJL in 1938.

Sibal had claimed that the National Herald case is neither cheating nor corruption. According to him, a case of cheating cannot be made out because no AJL shareholder has complained against the dealings. But with Bhushan in the fray, the case now becomes one of cheating. Bhushan too termed the transfer of AJL shares to Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YIL) as "wholly illegal" and declared that he will certainly challenge it in courts. This is sure to cause immense worry to the Congress. Its lawyers will now have to look for a new defence line and fresh arguments.

So far, Sonia and Rahul have been alleging "political vendetta" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office even though when Swamy had lodged the complaint in 2012, when Congress-led UPA 2 was in power at the Centre and Swamy was not in the BJP. He was heading the Janata Party.

Further, the two members of Congress' first family have been summoned by the courts and not by any agency such as CBI, Enforcement Directorate or Income Tax department of the Central government.

Third, the summons by the trial court in the case of alleged cheating and misappropriation of funds have been strictly scrutinised. Challenging the summons, Sonia and Rahul had moved the Delhi high court which quashed their petitions. Hence, by making the wild allegation of "political vendetta", the Congress leaders are casting aspersions on the trial court and Delhi high court, which have issued the summons on basis of the merits of the case, and can attract contempt of court.

If Sonia and Rahul cry hoarse over developments on the basis of Swamy's complaint and term them as "political vendetta" without any sound basis, what will they say now when Bhushan has also thrown in his gauntlet in the case? They may call it "political conspiracy" because Bhushan had played a major role in the Allahabad high court declaring the then prime minister Indira Gandhi's Lok Sabha election as null and void.

As a lawyer, he had represented Raj Narain who was the petitioner in the case. This led Indira to clamp down Emergency. In the 1977 Lok Sabha elections, while Raj Narain defeated Indira, Bhushan became law minister in the Morarji Desai government. As law minister, he introduced the 44th amendment to the Constitution which revoked the anti-freedom provisions enacted by Indira through 42nd amendment. He was also one of the founding members of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its earlier avatar - India Against Corruption (IAC), forcing the UPA government to introduce Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament.

If Sonia and Rahul are so confident of getting vindicated, why are they running away from appearing in the trial court? And why are they harming the nation's interest by stalling Parliament if they are on the right side of the law? While Sibal had asserted that ultimately, the Congress will be vindicated in the courts, the developments indicate otherwise.