Sonia Gandhi seeks dismissal of rights violation case in US

Congress party president Sonia Gandhi has asked a court here to dismiss the human rights violation case filed against her in connection with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case by a Sikh rights group, saying the complaint failed to attribute actual acts to her.

In a 24-page motion filed in the court, her attorney Ravi Batra said the lawsuit by Sikhs for Justice contains no allegations of "torture" or "extra-judicial killing" directed toward any named plaintiff and nor are they any plausible facts linking Gandhi to the actions alleged in the complaint.

"Rather, without any actual nexus to Gandhi, the complaint uses buzzwords like genocide, torture and killing, without any description of the acts allegedly constituting same," Batra said in his motion.

He said SFJ disregarded rules of the court, while "unjustly" arguing for unlimited extraterritorial jurisdiction and corporate liability in the anti-Sikh riots and hold an "innocent" Gandhi liable. "Two wrongs don't make a right," he added.

SFJ legal advisor Gurpatwant Singh said they are hopeful that the 1984 riot victims would have opportunity before the US court to present the facts of "how successive Congress governments under the patronage of Gandhi shielded the leaders" who allegedly were involved in abetting and organising the the riots in November 1984 following the assassination of then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Batra said that the putative substantive allegations in SFJ's complaint fail to attribute actual acts or omissions to Gandhi.