COURT-HERALD 2

The Congress leaders’ reply also said that Swamy’s The Congress leaders’ reply also said that Swamy’sapplication reflected casualness as some of the soughtdocuments were already on record of this case and some wereexhibited by witnesses during the recording of the pre-summoning evidence in case. The reply said "Swamy proceeded to move a wholly vagueapplication demanding a series of documents to be summoned,without divulging even an iota of material as to the relevanceand desirability of documents mentioned in application…." It claimed that a witness was already called from ROC(Registrar of Companies) at the stage of recording pre-summoning evidences and "to now again summon documents fromthe ROC falls within the parameter of a fishing and rovingenquiry, as the case has already been set up by complainantduring the course of recording of pre-summoning evidence". "The complainant has also sought documents from theIncome tax authorities regarding parties (Congress and AJL)which are not accused in the matter. In such a scenario, ITAct contains sections pertaining to confidentiality of ITrecords which prohibit disclosure of information of assesses,"it said. In his application, Swamy had sought documents relatingto a loan given by the Congress to the AJL, the holding firmof the National Herald, saying these were necessary for thepurposes of trial in the case. He had also sought some documents from ROC which werefiled by the AJL and papers from the Department of Income Tax(DoT) in relation to income tax returns filed by AJL. The documents sought from AJL included "authorisation bythe members of the AJL to borrow monies in excess of its paid-up capital and free reserve of AJL, relevant extracts from thebooks of accounts of AJL during the period of loan anddocuments by which the loan was converted into shares in thebooks of AJL." Swamy also sought summoning documents from "the Congressparty reflecting the loans given to AJL and documents of theparty in the year in which the loan was written off." He alsowanted summoning of "documents filed by AJL with ROC andcertain papers from the DoT." (More) PTI UKARC