Court summon to Sonia

Patna, May 22: A Muzaffarpur fast track court today issued summons to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and two other Uttar Pradesh Congress leaders in a case of “offending religious sentiments” by portraying Sonia as Durga at a poster displayed at Muradabad Congress office last June.
While hearing a PIL, fast track court-I judge Vijay Kumar Mandal issued summons to Sonia, Uttar Pradesh Congress unit president Rita Bahuguna and Muradabad Congress chief Ajay Soni to appear before the court on June 26, 2008.
Muzaffarpur-based advocate and social activist Sudhir Kumar Ojha, who filed the PIL, told The Telegraph: “We had prayed that since neither Sonia not Rita Bahuguna discouraged Soni for his portrayal of Sonia as Durga, the summons should be against all three.”
He added that Soni had put up the posters at the party office last June singing “unwarranted” paeans to Gandhi and thus had hurt popular religious sentiments of the people.
Ojha filed the PIL at the Muzaffarpur CJM court on June 21, 2007. The court heard the case and set up an inquiry by the first class judicial magistrate and dismissed the case on December 1, 2007, after the judicial magistrate submitted a report to the court.
Ojha challenged the PIL dismissal in Muzaffarpur additional and district judge court, which admitted the case afresh and asked fast track court judge Mandal to look into it. Special public prosecutor Motilal Shah today presented the government’s side before the court, whereas Ojha advocated his PIL.
Friday , May 23 , 2008
OUR CORRESPONDENT
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