PoliticsCourts
Sonia Gandhi voter list case: court lets complainant file more documents, next hearing November 18
A Rouse Avenue magistrate, hearing the plea for an FIR afresh on a sessions court's orders, gave the complainant time to back his claim that her name was on the 1980 roll before she became a citizen.
Key points
- ACJM Vinod Joshi allowed the complainant to file additional documents.
- The case will be heard next on November 18.
- The complaint says her name was on the 1980 roll, three years before citizenship.
A Delhi court on Friday allowed the complainant to file more documents in his plea for an FIR against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi over her name on the 1980 voter list, and fixed November 18 for the next hearing.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Vinod Joshi, who hears cases involving MPs and MLAs at the Rouse Avenue courts, is taking up the complaint afresh on the orders of a sessions court. Advocate Vikas Tripathi, the complainant, sought permission and time to put further material on record to support his claim, and the court agreed. The earlier hearing, on October 28, had been lost to a lawyers’ strike.
The claim and the remand
Tripathi alleges that her name appeared on the New Delhi constituency’s roll in 1980, three years before she became an Indian citizen in April 1983, and that the entry could not have been made without forged papers.
A magistrate refused to order an FIR in 2025. On September 21, Special Judge Vishal Gogne set that refusal aside. “The order is a non-speaking order. It is liable to be set aside,” he said, noting that it gave no reasons and leaned on an unverified photocopy. He sent the case back with directions to call for a status report from the police officer concerned and to pass a reasoned order after hearing that officer.
No finding has been made on the merits of the complaint, and no response from Sonia Gandhi or her lawyers has been reported.