New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (May 24, 2004) dismissed a petition seeking a direction to the President not to appoint Congress chief Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister of the country.

A Vacation Bench headed by Justice Ruma Pal imposed a cost of Rs 30,000 on petitioner Ashok Pandey, a Lucknow-based advocate, after he insisted that the matter be referred to a five-judge Constitution Bench.

The Bench observed that after Sonia's "refusal" to become Prime Minister, the cause of action did not survive.

When the petitioner insisted that the issue of her foreign origin was very much alive and it should be decided by a Constitution Bench, the court observed that the issue had already been settled in the Hari Shanker Jain case.

Jain had challenged Sonia's election to the Lok Sabha from Amethi on the ground that she was not a citizen of India.

However, Pandey kept on insisting that the matter should be referred to a Constitution Bench and even went on to say that the court was in the habit of dismissing petitions without hearing.

This angered the Bench, which imposed a cost of Rs 20,000, but when the petitioner refused to leave the court even after dismissal of his petition, it raised the cost amount to Rs 25,000 and then to Rs 30,000.

It was only after the Bench threatened that "we will have you arrested" that the petitioner relented.

The Lucknow-based lawyer had moved the court on May 17, contending that the Congress president was not a citizen of India within the meaning of Article 5 of the Constitution.