Rahul’s citizenship: HC grants more time to central govt to file reply

Lucknow: The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court on Monday granted more time to the Central govt to place before it the outcome of a representation moved against Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, seeking cancellation of his 2024 Parliamentary election, owing to his alleged concealment of his British citizenship.

The bench has directed that the matter should be listed in the week commencing April 21 for next hearing.

A bench of Justice AR Masoodi and Justice AK Srivastava Ist passed the order on a PIL filed by S Vignesh Shishir, a BJP worker from Karnataka. While hearing the PIL on Nov 25 , the court had sought information from the Central govt regarding its decision on the representation of the petitioner.

Thereafter, it was apprised by the Central govt’s counsel to the bench that acting on the petitioner’s representation , the concerned ministry has written letter to the UK govt seeking details about Gandhi’s alleged British citizenship and hence govt needed time to take final decision on the petitioner’s representation seeking cancellation of Gandhi’s parliamentary election. Since after, the Central govt sought more time over and again. It yet again sought time on Monday.

In the PIL, the petitioner has pleaded that he has all the documents and some emails of the British govt which prove that Rahul Gandhi is a British citizen and due to this he is ineligible to contest elections in India and cannot hold the post of Lok Sabha member.The petitioner also says that he sent complaints twice to the competent authority regarding Rahul’s dual citizenship, but the present petition has been filed as no action was taken by them.

The petition also states that Rahul Gandhi’s dual citizenship is a crime under the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Passport Act and hence the CBI be ordered to register a case and investigate into it.

Courtesy : TOI

Note: This news is originally published in timesofindia.com and was used solely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes exclusively for Human Rights