NEW DELHI, 25 May 2004 — The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed as infructuous a Public Interest Litigation petition seeking to restrain Congress party President Sonia Gandhi from becoming the prime minister of the country.
A bench headed by Justice Ruma Pal imposed a heavy cost of 30,000 rupees on the petitioner Ashok Pandey, a Lucknow based lawyer when he insisted that the matter should be decided afresh by a five-judge constitution bench. Earlier, the bench had told the petitioner that the matter had now become infructuous after Sonia had declined to take up the post of prime minister.
The petitioner, however, insisted that the issue of her foreign origin had not been decided by the Supreme Court. The bench said the issue had been decided in 1999 in a petition challenging her election.
But when the petitioner insisted that the matter had not been decided the bench imposed the cost of 30,000 rupees on him.
On the other hand, the Bhartiya Janata Party yesterday reiterated its stand that Sonia’s foreign origin would continue to remain an issue for the party.
“The foreign origin issue will remain an issue for us and only Indian leaders should rule the country,” declared BJP President M. Venkaiah Naidu at a press conference.
When his attention was drawn to the ‘sacrifice’ made by Sonia, who refused to accept the post, Naidu shot back: “If it is a sacrifice, why have Congress workers been burning the effigies of Sushma Swaraj and Uma Bharati?”
