Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi have had a fresh FIR served against them in the National Herald case by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), as senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi had argued before the court that no predicate offence existed and implied that this legal gap undermined the earlier case, suggesting that the agency filed a new FIR to address the jurisdictional weakness he had highlighted.
At the same time, the Centre informed Parliament that although the ED has recorded 6,312 PMLA cases since 2014, it has secured convictions in only 120 of them.
The ED’s decision to file a new FIR with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police on 3 October has revived the decade-long controversy around the financial restructuring of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) and the role of the Gandhis in the affairs of Young Indian, the not-for-profit entity that took over AJL’s debts.
The fresh FIR names Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Suman Dubey, Sam Pitroda, Young Indian, Dotex Merchandise Pvt Ltd, Sunil Bhandari, AJL and unidentified persons under IPC provisions relating to cheating, criminal breach of trust, dishonest misappropriation of property and criminal conspiracy, and it alleges that properties allotted to the National Herald at subsidised rates for public purposes were diverted for personal gain, thereby constituting a serious financial offence.
The Congress leadership has been maintaining that the ED’s renewed action stems from Singhvi’s courtroom arguments, as his contention that no predicate offence existed under the PMLA framework appeared to expose a significant legal gap in the agency’s earlier case, prompting what the party describes as a retrospective attempt to create a scheduled offence to strengthen the ED’s jurisdiction.
The filing of the new FIR has therefore been interpreted within political circles as a corrective step by the agency, as it seeks to avoid judicial scrutiny of procedural lapses that could weaken its case.
These developments have emerged at a time when the ED’s broader record has come under parliamentary and judicial examination, since minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary placed fresh data in Parliament showing that the agency has recorded 6,312 cases under the PMLA between June 2014 and November 2025, while managing only 120 convictions during that period, and the numbers highlight how the volume of investigations has expanded rapidly after 2019, with annual registrations rising from fewer than 200 cases before that year to well over 500 in 2019–20 and crossing 1,100 in 2021–22.
The minister also stated that closure reports had been filed in 93 cases since August 2019 where no money laundering offence was established, whereas 1,185 cases had been closed between 2005 and mid-2019 before amendments made it mandatory for the ED to report closures before special courts, and the reasons for closure included the termination of the scheduled offence, quashing of predicate cases or findings that no offence under the PMLA had occurred.
The ED’s powers, expanded through amendments introduced by the Modi government, have made the law more stringent, particularly as accused persons must now demonstrate prima facie innocence to secure bail, and critics believe this framework has enabled the agency to target political opponents even as the Supreme Court’s 2022 judgment upholding the amendments remains under reconsideration.