Delhi court to hear plea over Sonia Gandhi’s alleged inclusion in voter rolls before citizenship

A Delhi court will hear a revision petition challenging the dismissal of a complaint alleging that Sonia Gandhi’s name was included in electoral rolls before she acquired Indian citizenship in 1983, an allegation she has dismissed as politically motivated.

New Delhi: A Delhi court will hear a criminal revision petition filed against Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Monday over allegations that her name was fraudulently included in the electoral rolls before she acquired Indian citizenship.

The revision petition, filed by advocate Vikas Tripathi, assails the September 11, 2025, order of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasia, who had dismissed the complaint seeking a police investigation into the alleged wrongful inclusion of Sonia Gandhi’s name in the voter list.

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According to the petitioner, Sonia Gandhi’s name first appeared in the electoral roll of the New Delhi constituency in 1980, nearly three years before she formally acquired Indian citizenship in April 1983.

The plea claims that such inclusion could not have occurred without forged or fabricated documents and amounts to a cognisable offence.

It has been contended that her name was subsequently deleted from the electoral rolls in 1982 and re-included in 1983 after she became an Indian citizen, raising questions about the legality of the earlier entry.

In an order passed on December 9, 2025, Special Judge (Prevention of Corruption Act) Vishal Gogne of the Rouse Avenue Court had agreed to examine the revision plea and issued notice to Sonia Gandhi as well as the Delhi Police, directing the matter to be listed for further hearing.

Earlier, the Magistrate Court had dismissed the complaint seeking registration of an FIR, saying that the Judiciary cannot embark upon an inquiry that would result in unwarranted transgression into fields expressly entrusted to Constitutional authorities.

It held that such intervention would be barred under Article 329 of the Constitution, which limits judicial interference in electoral matters except through election petitions.

Opposing the revision petition, Sonia Gandhi has told the court that the allegations are “politically motivated”, baseless, and founded on incorrect and misleading facts.

In her reply, Sonioa Gandhi said that questions relating to citizenship fall exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Central government, while disputes concerning electoral rolls lie within the authority of the Election Commission of India.

She has also added that no credible documentary evidence has been produced to substantiate allegations of forgery or fraud and described the proceedings as an abuse of the legal process.

The issue has been politically contentious, with Bharatiya Janata Party leaders accusing the Congress of manipulating voter lists in the past and referring to the Sonia Gandhi case as an example of alleged irregularities.

Congress, on the other hand, has dismissed such claims as “baseless” and “retaliatory”.