New Delhi [India], September 10 : A Delhi Court on Wednesday reserved its order on a complaint against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi over alleged forgery "over her inclusion in the voter list" in 1980, prior to her getting Indian citizenship.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Vaibhav Chaurasia reserved the order after putting specific queries to the counsel for complainant Vikas Tripathi.
Senior counsel Pavan Narang, who appeared for the complainant, said Sonia Gandhi was not an Indian citizen in January 1980.
"How can her name be included as a voter if she was not an Indian citizen? What were those documents on which her name was included in the voter lists of the New Delhi constituency? Her name was deleted, which shows that there was something wrong. Her name was again on the voter lists in 1983 before acquiring Indian citizenship," he argued.
A plea has been filed Rouse Avenue Court seeking an investigation into the circumstances of inclusion of Sonia Gandhi in electoral rolls before acquisition of Indian citizenship in April 1983.
Narang had argued that the issue at hand is not political but legal, emphasising that the alleged acts constitute a cognizable offence that warrants a police investigation.
According to the complaint, Sonia Gandhi, originally an Italian citizen, became an Indian national on April 30, 1983, under Section 5 of the Citizenship Act.
However, her name appeared in the New Delhi parliamentary constituency voters' list as early as 1981-82, raising questions about the documents submitted to the Election Commission at the time.
Narang pointed out that Gandhi's name, along with that of late Sanjay Gandhi, was later deleted from the rolls in 1982. He argued that such a deletion indicates that her earlier entry in the electoral roll was irregular, as only Indian citizens are eligible to be enrolled as voters.
Narang submitted that "forged or falsified" documents may have been used to secure her inclusion in the voters' list before citizenship was granted. "A public authority has been misled, and a fraud appears to have been committed," he told the court.
He further argued that despite approaching the Delhi Police and senior officers with a complaint, no action was taken, leaving the petitioner with no option but to approach the court.
The plea seeks direction for registration of an FIR and investigation into the alleged offences.
The complaint also relies on a 1985 Allahabad High Court judgment in Rakesh Singh vs Sonia Gandhi, which had examined the issue of her citizenship in the context of an election petition. While the court had then held that she became an Indian citizen on April 30, 1983, by registration, the present plea argues that any voter enrollment before that date was illegal.
The petitioner has urged the court to direct the police to investigate, requisition records, and examine the documents submitted to the Election Commission during that period.