The Delhi High Court today dismissed the writ petition filed by a lawyer against UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi for hosting a dinner for political figures before the presidential and vice-presidential elections to ''influence the electoral college''.

Justice V B Gupta imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 each on both the petitions, stating that the HC had no jurisdiction to take up cases relating to the presidential or vice-presidential elections and the petioner had done that to get undue publicity in the matter.

The court observed that many frivolous applications were being filed in courts, consuming a lot of their time.

The motive behind is to get undue publicity and these should be dealt with sternly and heavy penalties should be imposed on them, the court observed.

The petitioner stated that Ms Gandhi had hosted a dinner before the presidential elections as well as before the vice-presidential elections, which was violative of the Election Comission norms.

He sought to lodge criminal cases against Ms Gandhi as well as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had allegedly induced the voters to vote for their party candidate.

A lower court had earlier dismissed a similar petition, stating that all disputes pertaining to the presidential as well as vice presidential elections can be dealt by the Supreme Court only and other courts are specifically barred from entertaining such pleas.