Sikhs for Justice held Gandhi culpable for 1984 riots.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: The Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) case against Sonia Gandhi has been tossed out of court in New York City.
Eastern District of New York Judge Brian M. Cogan dismissed the case “with prejudice,” putting to an end – at least for now, that is – the long-held case against Gandhi lodged by the SFJ for perceived human rights violations she allegedly sanctioned during the 1984 Sikh riots in the Indian state of Punjab.
“As lawyers for Sonia Gandhi, we are delighted to restore her reputation that was sought to be diminished based upon nothing other than meritless allegations,” said Ravi Batra, lead counsel for Gandhi and the Indian National Congress, in a statement.
Judge Cogan put forth a 13-page Decision and Order, in which he sided with Gandhi and the Indian National Congress (INC) on each of the points in the case, ultimately dismissing the case with finality. Although SFJ can still file for an appeal, they would face incredible difficulty in finding a legal reason to do so, as they have already tried several times to get the case prosecuted.
A large portion of the case centered around a man named Jasbir Singh, who came to the US in 2002 and was granted asylum in 2007. He has alleged throughout that his family home, located in Punjab, was attacked because of Gandhi’s complicity with the ant-Sikh riots, and that several of his family members have been maimed and killed, including his uncle.
In dismissing the case, the court poked several holes in Singh’s allegations, and even called into question why he came to the US more than 10 years ago, but waited several years before trying to lodge accusations against Gandhi and the INC, and were well outside of the statute of limitations for such crimes.
The court also dismissed allegations that Gandhi was involved in an elaborate anti-Sikh conspiracy, even when she became President of the Congress Party in 1998, and said that several details of Singh’s testimony, including that he had been tortured at one point, were simply indefensible or did have proper evidence to back them up.
“Judge Cogan, with ‘great generosity’ to SFJ, granted our motion to dismiss in every respect, except he did not issue a global anti-suit injunction against SFJ while holding SFJ to be an illegal plaintiff in this case,” said Batra, saying that that was the one thing Gandhi and her legal team wanted to accomplish but were unable to.
SFJ has not announced what its next step will be; having pursued the case for so many years, they will almost certainly try to continue to get it prosecuted. But, as it turns out, they may now have come up against an insurmountable wall.