NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Thursday dismissed a plea seeking action against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, alleging her name was included in the electoral rolls three years before she became an Indian citizen.
Additional chief judicial magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasia dismissed the plea.
A detailed order is awaited.
On September 10, senior advocate Pavan Narang, appearing for the complainant, Vikas Tripathi said in January 1980 Gandhi's name was added as a voter of New Delhi constituency when she was not an Indian citizen.
"First, you have to satisfy the threshold of citizenship, then you will become a resident of an area," he said.
Narang said in 1980, the proof of residence was probably a ration card or a passport.
"If she was a citizen, then why was her name deleted in 1982? Two names were deleted then by the election commission, one was of Sanjay Gandhi after he died in a plane crash, and the other was of Sonia Gandhi," he said.
Narang said the election commission must have found something wrong prompting deletion of her name from the electoral rolls.
On September 4, Narang said Gandhi's name was included in the electoral roll as a voter of the New Delhi constituency in 1980, which was deleted in 1982, and again re-entered in 1983 after she acquired the Indian citizenship.
The plea was filed under Section 175 (4) (power of magistrate to order investigation) of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, seeking directions to the police for investigation into the allegation that Gandhi became an Indian citizen in 1983, but her name was in the 1980 electoral roll.
He claimed "some forgery" and public authority being "cheated."
"My limited request is to either direct the police to register an FIR under the appropriate sections. Whether they are made or not is the domain of the police," he added.
The BJP had earlier used the argument to counter Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi's allegations of "vote theft" against the Election Commission and the saffron party.
BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya had alleged that Sonia Gandhi’s name was added to the electoral rolls before she became an Indian citizen. He said her name appeared in the rolls of the New Delhi parliamentary constituency at 1, Safdarjung Road, then the official residence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, alongside other members of the Gandhi family.
“If this isn’t blatant electoral malpractice, what is?” he alleged.