A Delhi Court dismissed a plea demanding an FIR against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi for inclusion in the 1980 electoral rolls, three years before acquiring Indian Citizenship. The refusal to order an FIR for allegedly using forged documents to get her name added was pronounced by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasiya of the Rouse Avenue Courts.
According to Live Law, the order against Gandhi was reserved by the judge on Wednesday. The plea seeking criminal action against the Congress leader was filed by Vikas Tripathi.
Senior Advocate Pawan Narang, representing Tripathi, had submitted that the grounds of being a citizen of India have to be verified first before inclusion in the voter list. No one represented Gandhi’s side.
“First, you have to satisfy you are a citizen of India… that is the first threshold. After being a citizen, another threshold is whether, once I want to become a voter, proof of residence is required. Today, maybe a 12th class certificate is a valid proof as per ECI, but at that time, PAN or Aadhar was not there. It used to be a passport or a ration card. What we are saying is that she has to cross the threshold of being an Indian citizen,” Live Law quoted Narang as having said. Narang further added that Sonia Gandhi’s name was later deleted from the 1982 electoral rolls list.
As per Tripathi’s case, Gandhi’s name was added to the 1980 electoral rolls of the New Delhi constituency. But she acquired Indian citizenship three years later, in 1983.
