Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Vaibhav Chaurasia reserved the order after asking specific questions from the complainant Vikas Tripathi’s lawyer. Senior advocate Pawan Narang, appearing on behalf of the complaint, said that Sonia Gandhi was not an Indian citizen in January 1980. He argued, “If she was not an Indian citizen, then how could their names be included in the form of a voter? The list was included? His name was removed, which shows something wrong.
A petition in the Rouse Avenue Court has filed a demand for an inquiry into the circumstances of the inclusion of the names of Sonia Gandhi in the voter list before receiving Indian citizenship in April 1983. He became an Indian citizen under Section 5 of the Citizenship Act. However, his name was included in the voter list of New Delhi parliamentary constituency in 1981-82, which raised questions on the documents submitted to the Election Commission at that time.
Narang said that Indira Gandhi’s name was removed from the voter list in 1982 with the late Sanjay Gandhi. He argued that such a deletion shows that his former entry in the voter list was irregular, as only Indian citizens deserve to be nominated as voters.
Narang argued that “fake or false” documents would have been used to register a name in the voter list before citizenship. He told the court, “A government official has been misled and seems to be cheated.” He further argued that no action was taken despite complaining to Delhi Police and senior officials, making the petitioner had no option but to knock the court.
The petition has demanded a demand to register an FIR and to investigate alleged offenses. The complaint also cited the Allahabad High Court’s decision in the Rakesh Singh vs Sonia Gandhi case of 1985, in which the issue of citizenship of Sonia Gandhi was investigated in the context of an election petition. Although the court then admitted that it had become an Indian citizen through registration on April 30, 1983, the current petition argued that the nomination of any voter was illegal before that date. The petitioner has urged the court to direct the police to investigate, seek records and direct the Election Commission to investigate the documents handed over to the Election Commission during that period.