Misuse of legal process: Court rejects plea on Sonia Gandhi citizenship case

A Delhi court has dismissed a plea seeking a criminal investigation against senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, claiming her name was illegally included in India's electoral rolls prior to her acquiring Indian citizenship in 1983.

The complaint, filed by advocate Vikas Tripathi, alleged that Gandhi’s name appeared on the 1980 electoral rolls for the New Delhi constituency, despite her not being a citizen of India at the time. The plea was supported by senior advocate Pavan Narang, who argued that the inclusion amounted to forgery and that a public authority had been cheated.

However, additional chief metropolitan magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasia found no legal merit in the allegations and held that the issue of citizenship fell entirely under the jurisdiction of the Central government, not the criminal court.

“Such a course, in substance, amounts to a misuse of the process of law by projecting a civil or ordinary dispute in the garb of criminality, solely to create a jurisdiction where none exists,” the judge observed in his detailed order.

In a strongly worded judgment, the court said the petition appeared designed to manufacture jurisdiction through “allegations which are legally untenable, deficient in substance, and beyond the scope of this forum’s authority”.

Deprecating the attempt to invoke criminal law, the court remarked that the complaint was a clear abuse of process, intended to cloak a civil or procedural issue in criminal terms without establishing the essential ingredients of cheating or forgery.

The plea primarily relied on what the court described as a “photocopy of a photocopy” of an uncertified extract from the 1980 electoral rolls. It did not include any official or authenticated documents to support the charge.

“The mere bald assertions, unaccompanied by the essential particulars required to attract the statutory elements of cheating or forgery, cannot substitute a legally sustainable accusation,” the judge said.

The court reiterated that it did not have the authority to adjudicate matters relating to citizenship, which are Constitutionally reserved for the Central government, nor could it interfere in electoral roll entries governed by the Election Commission of India.

Citing Article 329 of the Constitution, which bars judicial interference in electoral matters, the judge observed that “any attempt by this court to embark upon such an inquiry would result in an unwarranted transgression into fields expressly entrusted to competent constitutional authorities.”

The judge also pointed out that the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and 1951, along with allied laws, placed responsibility for resolving such disputes with the Election Commission, not the courts.

The order further added, “Whatever cannot be done directly, cannot be done indirectly. Mere addition of predicate offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), with the mask of cognisability, will not justify any interference in the constitutional functionaries by this court.”

The court concluded that the private complaint encroached upon territory constitutionally reserved for the Central government and electoral authorities, and thus deserved to be dismissed.

With PTI inputs