Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, opposing ED’s plea in the alleged National Herald case before the Delhi High Court, said that the case is the “single instance in the entire country where a department has proceeded on the basis of a private complaint”.In December last year, ED moved Delhi HC challenging a trial court’s judgement a day after it was pronounced.The trial court had refused to take cognisance of the agency’s chargesheet primarily on the grounds that Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, (PMLA) contemplates complaints by investigating officers from a probe agency, and not a private complaint from public persons.In the National Herald case, which accused the Gandhis of money laundering, among other charges, the complaint had stemmed from former BJP MP Subramanian Swamy.The Gandhis, in their written responses filed before the HC on September 18, said “there is no question of a complaint by a private person for an offence… enabling the ED to assume jurisdiction”.Also Read | National Herald case: Why special court ruled against EDThey flagged the necessity of a predicate offence for carrying on with ED proceedings, as is stipulated under the PMLA Act.Gandhis also argued that because a money laundering trial must follow a strictly separate legal track from a scheduled offence trial, the ED cannot use a private individual’s complaint as “a foundational instrument for investigation”.Story continues below this adThey pointed out that “prosecution under the PMLA [in this case] would lead to the contrary situation, where ED shall have to take the power of investigation of scheduled offence, in the absence of any meaningful investigation”, which would be “totally antithetical to the scheme of the Act”.The Gandhis also pointed out that the ED’s stance over the years was that “it could not launch money laundering proceedings against one company, in the absence of (predicate offence) FIR,” and that “in the absence of FIR, cognizance under PMLA could not be taken”.“…This has been disregarded in the present case for reasons best known to the Department and ex facie patently not in accordance with settled principles of law,” the Gandhis submitted.In the National Herald case, the ED has alleged that the Gandhis, along with a few other office-bearers of the Congress, entered into a criminal conspiracy to usurp Rs 2,000-crore worth of assets of Associated Journals Limited (AJL), a public unlisted company and the publisher of the National Herald newspaper.Story continues below this adThe All India Congress Committee (AICC) had loaned Rs 90.21 crores to AJL.Subsequently, Young Indian, a private not-for-profit company in which Sonia and Rahul Gandhi together held 76 per cent of the shares, purchased from AICC the right to recover the loan for Rs 50 lakh.According to the agency, AJL simultaneously converted the outstanding loan of Rs 90.21 crore into 9.02 crore equity shares of face value Rs 10 each in favour of Young Indian, thereby defrauding the shareholders of AJL as well as the public donors of AICC.These allegations were made by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy in a private complaint to the ED in 2014.