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August 27, 1999 NEWS ANALYSIS SPECIALS INTERVIEW CAMPAIGN TRAIL ISSUES GALLERY MANIFESTOS OVERHEARD INDIA SPEAKS! DISCUSSION GROUP CHAT PREVIOUS RESULTS SCHEDULE

Bombay, Madras HCs quash petitions against Sonia In two similar orders today the Bombay High Court and the Madras High Court rejected separate public interest litigations urging for directions to debar Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, from contesting parliamentary elections on the ground that she was not born in India. In Bombay, a bench comprising Chief Justice Y K Sabarwal and Justice S H Kapadia directed the petitioner, a city based lawyer, Pushkaraj Ghordge, to pay a petition cost of Rs 10,000 within a week to the State Legal Fund for misusing the facility of PIL. While rejecting the petition, the bench observed that the nature of allegation made in the petition clearly showed that it was a case of blatant misuse of PIL and that it was filed with a view to get cheap publicity. ''There cannot be any doubt that election process was set in motion well before this petition was filed. The Representation of People's Act is a complete code by itself and it contains various provisions which enable parties to raise objections before the returning officer. If such objection is raised the RO is empowered to decide upon such objections. However, in the present case, no no such objection was raised by any candidate or political party,'' the bench observed. The PIL had prayed for a direction to the Union Home Ministry to call for all documents connected to Sonia Gandhi's Italian citizenship. It also urged for information on her Italian citizenship from the Indian embassy in Italy. The petitioner had appealed that till the hearing of the PIL, election to Bellary parliamentary constituency, where Sonia is a contestant, be withheld. In Madras, the High Court dismissed as not maintainable a public interest litigation seeking to declare as unconstitutional and null and void, the filing of nomination papers by Sonia in Bellary, on the ground that she was an Italian by birth. A bench, comprising acting Chief Justice N K Jain and Justice K Sampath, dismissed the PIL stating that the court could not entertain such petitions filed for political reasons and publicity. It also directed the petitioner, Saravanan of Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu, to pay Rs 5000 as petition costs. The bench pointed out that Sonia had already become a citizen in 1983 and the petitioner had not challenged it then. Moreover, her nomination papers had been accepted by the returning officer. The petitioner had alleged that Sonia did not know our tradition and culture and was hence unfit to rule the country. He said she had married Rajiv Gandhi in 1968 and was living in India as a foreigner till 1983, when she had made an application seeking Indian citizeship. He alleged that after the expiry of her visa period in 1968, Sonia did not report to the appropriate authority as contemplated in the country's laws, though she had been well aware of these laws. UNI Tell us what you think of this interview

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