Forgot: Siddharth Varadarajan apologises to Delhi HC for not disclosing Allahabad HC travel restriction order in OCI card plea

The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan has tendered an unconditional apology and sought the Delhi High Court’s pardon for failure to disclose certain facts in his plea challenging the Central government’s decision to deny him the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status. .The Central government had accused Varadarajan of suppressing the Allahabad High Court order dated May 15, 2020, by which he was restrained him from leaving the country during the trial of a case registered against him at Ayodhya.The Allahabad High Court had imposed that restriction while granting him anticipatory bail in the case.However, this order was not disclosed by him in his plea filed before the Delhi High Court seeking OCI card.After the Allahabad High Court order was flagged by the Central government, Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav of the Delhi High Court on May 14 ordered Varadarajan to file an affidavit explaining his conduct. Justice Kaurav also recalled its previous order by which it had quashed the Central government’s decision to deny Varadarajan an OCI card. .In an affidavit dated May 22, Varadarajan has now said that there was an order of the Allahabad High Court dated May 15, 2020, granting him anticipatory bail in a case registered in Ayodhya. He told the Court that the order was passed six years ago at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and that no summons was issued to him in the criminal case to date. He stated that the Allahabad High Court order does not say that he must take permission during the pendency of proceedings or after cognisance is taken by the trial court, but only during the “currency of trial”. “It may also be noted that the trial, far from being current, has not even started till date. All the offences except Section 505 IPC are bailable and the same is punishable with a maximum of 3 years and is hence subject to a warrants trial. Being a warrants case, trial commences only after framing of charges,” he said. Varadarajan reasoned that since the condition of taking the trial court’s permission before travelling abroad has not come into play for the last six years, he failed to recollect the Allahabad High Court order while filing his plea before the Delhi High Court. “It is in these circumstances and during the long passage of time without any notification of the case that the said order of the Hon'ble Allahabad High Court slipped the deponent's mind. In fact, neither the State of UP nor the present respondents have ever raised any objection to the deponent's subsequent travels, thereby, suggesting that their reading of the conditions were exactly the same as the deponent's and the advice he received. Furthermore, the prosecuting agency has not shown any interest in proceeding with the case in court,” Varadarajan’s affidavit stated. It added that it was never Varadarajan’s intention to disregard the Allahabad High Court order or conceal anything from the Delhi High Court. It was also stated that the pendency of the Ayodhya case and its status were disclosed to the Central government when Varadarajan applied for OCI status. .The matter came up for hearing today before Justice Kaurav again when the Central government sought time to reply to Varadarajan’s affidavit.The Court then adjourned the case to July 15..Varadrajan is a US citizen and holds a Person of India Origin (PIO) card. However, all PIO cards expired on December 31, 2025 and are no longer valid for entry into or stay in India. This happened after the government decided to merge the PIO and OCI card schemes. According to Varadarajan, he applied for an OCI card, but his plea was denied. His PIO Card is valid till 2032, but since the PIO scheme no longer exists, his card is not readable, as per his plea..Senior Advocate Nitya Ramakrishna along with advocates Archit Krishna, Indronil Choudhry and Ashutosh Shukla are appearing for Siddharth Varadarajan. The Central government was represented by Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Nishant Gautam and Ashish Dixit and advocates Vineet Negi, Kavya Shukla Vibhav V Nath, Amit Gupta, Shubham Sharma, Yashwardhan Sharma, Naman and Akash Gupta.