Delhi High Court recalls order setting aside Centre's decision refusing to convert Wire founder's PIO status to OCI

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday recalled its order setting aside the Centre's decision to reject The Wire founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan's plea seeking conversion of his Person of Indian Origin status to Overseas Citizen of India, saying he is prima facie guilty of suppressing facts.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav also recalled its May 13 order asking the authorities to consider an application by the US citizen for a "return visa" and allowing him to travel to Estonia between May 14 and 19.

The judge said the journalist failed to disclose the existence of a 2020 Allahabad High Court order that granted him anticipatory bail in a criminal case and imposed conditions, such as surrendering his passport and restricting travel abroad without permission from the trial court concerned.

Stating that it is always believed that a petitioner approaches the court with "full disclosure," Justice Kaurav issued notice to Vardarajan and asked him to file an affidavit in seven working days to explain his conduct.

"A perusal of the entire pleadings and the submissions till now by the petitioner, nowhere discloses the binding directions of the Allahabad High Court to the petitioner. In all fairness, the petitioner should have truthfully disclosed the said aspect.The court is prima facie of the opinion that the petitioner is guilty of suppressing material facts," the court said.

"All orders passed by the court in the writ petition stand recalled. Writ petition is restored," it directed.

Vardaranjan's senior counsel apologised to the court, saying that the order had "slipped" her mind.

Justice Kaurav asserted that as a general rule, a litigant is disqualified from obtaining relief under such circumstances and the court needs to deter the abuse of process of court by deceiving it.

Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, appearing for the Centre, said the material found against the petitioner was "disconcerting." He said police summons were issued to the petitioner in the past in relation to the criminal case and the Allahabad High Court order was "conveniently suppressed" from the court.

ASG Sharma said a chargesheet has also been filed in the case in a trial court in Uttar Pradesh.

The case stems from certain allegedly objectionable tweets by Varadarajan against the state's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

The court asked the petitioner to file the affidavit , saying it has "serious consequences. This will lead to a very unpleasant situation.

After hearing the parties, Justice Kaurav said the petitioner must explain his conduct and "depending on the same the court will decide whether the court has to take some action against the petitioner or we have to leave it at that" and listed the matter for hearing on May 25.

On May 12, the court granted relief to Vardarajan by setting aside the Centre's refusal to convert his Person of Indian Origin (PIO) status to Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) due to the absence of reasons for the rejections.

The journalist's senior counsel submitted that he held a PIO card and while all such cards were automatically deemed to be OCI cards after 2015, his PIO card stopped being readable and he had to apply for conversion.

She said the Centre turned down the request to convert Varadarajan's PIO card to OCI and sent the impugned communication to him on April 2.