PoliticsCourts
Delhi court to hear plea for FIR against Sonia Gandhi over 1980 voter list today
A Rouse Avenue magistrate takes up the complaint afresh after a sessions judge set aside the earlier refusal to order an FIR. The last hearing was lost to a lawyers' strike.
Key points
- ACJM Vinod Joshi is listed to hear the complaint afresh on Friday.
- The complaint says Sonia Gandhi's name was on the 1980 voter list before she became a citizen in April 1983.
- A sessions judge had called the first refusal to order an FIR a non-speaking order.
A Delhi court is due on Friday to take up afresh a plea for an FIR against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi over her name on the 1980 voter list, three years before she became an Indian citizen.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Vinod Joshi, who hears cases involving MPs and MLAs at the Rouse Avenue courts, listed the matter for November 6 after the October 28 hearing was lost to a lawyers’ strike.
The complainant, advocate Vikas Tripathi, alleges that her name appeared on the New Delhi constituency’s roll in 1980, was struck off in 1982 and was entered again in 1983, after she acquired citizenship in April that year. He argues that the 1980 entry could not have been made without forged documents, and wants the police to register a case.
Sent back by the sessions court
A magistrate refused to order an FIR in 2025, finding the material too thin; the complaint rested on what was described as a photocopy of a photocopy of the 1980 roll, not a certified copy. Tripathi went in revision, and the sessions court issued notice to Sonia Gandhi and Delhi Police on December 9, 2025.
On September 21, Special Judge Vishal Gogne set aside the refusal. “The order is a non-speaking order. It is liable to be set aside,” he said, adding that the magistrate’s “observation regarding the Central Government and Election Commission in relation to citizenship is improper”. He sent the case back with directions to call for a status report from the police officer concerned and pass a reasoned order after hearing that officer.
The revision had moved slowly. At a hearing in May, Tripathi accused her lawyers of seeking one date after another. No response from Sonia Gandhi or her lawyers to the complaint has been reported.