National Herald Archives

AJL has to vacate Herald House: HC

by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Media, News

New Delhi : The Delhi High Court on Thursday directed Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), publisher of National Herald newspaper, to vacate its Herald House premises here.

The AJL had challenged the Centre’s decision asking it to vacate, but a Division Bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V. Kameswar Rao rejected that plea, directing it to evict the building on the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg at ITO.

The AJL had challenged the December 21 order of a single judge bench that dismissed its plea against the Urban Development Ministry, which on October 30, 2018, had said that AJL’s 56-year-old lease on Herald House has ended amd it must vacate.

The Centre had requested the court to dismiss the appeal saying that Young Indian company, in which Congress President Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi are shareholders, was formed with an intention to take over Herald House.

The single judge in its order on December 21 had noted that by transfer of AJL’s 99 per cent shares to Young Indian company, the beneficial interest of AJL’s property worth Rs 413.40 crore stands clandestinely transferred to Young Indian company.

However, Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi defended AJL and denied the allegations.

He also told the court that the digital version of the newspaper was started on November 14, 2016, while the publication of weekly “National Herald on Sunday” was resumed on September 24, 2017.

The government has said that National Herald was revived only after the Centre sent a notice for inspection of the property in September 2016.

—IANS

National Herald’s ex-employees to protest in Lucknow

by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Media

Lucknow:(IANS) Former employees of Associated Journals Ltd., publishers of the now defunct National Herald, Navjivan and Qaumi Awaz, on Saturday said they would stage a sit-in demonstration at the office gate here from January 18 to 21 against the “step-motherly treatment” meted out to them by the management.

Before the sit-in, a general body meeting of the employees will be held at the office gate on January 16. This was decided at a meeting of the former employees union presided over by its president Kazim Hussain on Saturday.

In a statement issued by union general secretary Dilip Sinha, the Lucknow employees are demanding payment by the same formula that was applied for payment to their counterpart in Delhi which was promised by the management at the time of final payment to them in January 1999.

Besides, the registered office of the company in Lucknow was closed in 1999, earlier than the branch office in Delhi which stopped publication of the paper in 2008, and the Lucknow employees are also demanding wages for this period.

Sinha said the meeting also demanded re-launch of the three newspapers and urged the chairman of Associated Journals Ltd. to hold a meeting with the union on their demands before the meeting of shareholders slated for January 21.