The row over her educational degrees has returned to haunt Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani as the Delhi High Court on Tuesday summoned the judicial records of this case in a trial court.

The lower court had on 18 October 2016 dismissed a plea against the Union Minister, which alleged that Smriti had misrepresented her educational qualifications before the Election Commission (EC) in her various election affidavits.
The High Court summoned the records of the trial court, directing that they should be  produced before it on 13 September, the next date of hearing.

The high court's ruling came on a petition filed by a freelance writer Ahmer Khan, who challenged the trial court's decision dismissing his plea while holding that it was filed to "needlessly harass" Smriti as she was a union minister. Declining to summon the minister as an accused, the trial court judge had said that there was a "great delay of around 11 years" in filing the complaint.

Khan reportedly told the high court that the trial court's order was bad in law, which should be set aside.

The petitioner alleged that Smriti had "deliberately" given contradictory and discrepant information about her educational qualifications in affidavits filed before the EC in various polls in 2004, 2011 and 2014 and that she did not give any clarifications when questions were raised about them.

Khan charged that an election candidate, deliberately giving incorrect details or false affidavits, could be punished under provisions of the IPC and under section 125A of the Representation of the People Act (RPA).

He maintained that in her affidavit for contesting the 2004 Lok Sabha elections Smriti stated that she had completed her BA in 1996 from DU (School of Correspondence), whereas in another affidavit of 11 July 2011 for contesting the Rajya Sabha poll from Gujarat she had said her highest educational qualification was B.Com Part I from the School of Correspondence, DU.

Khan charged that in her affidavit filed for fighting the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Amethi constituency Smriti stated that she had completed B.Com Part-I from School of Open Learning, DU.

The actress-turned-politician is a Rajya Sabha member, who was previously HRD Minister.