Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 26: The Union Home Ministry told the Allahabad High Court on Tuesday that the matter of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s alleged dual citizenship was being looked into.
The submission by the union ministry was made in response to a query. The court had asked for the Centre’s response on a petition that claimed Mr Gandhi is also a citizen of the United Kingdom and in view of that, his Indian citizenship be revoked. The petitioner has also sought a CBI probe into Mr Gandhi’s citizenship.
Additional Solicitor General SB Pandey was asked to obtain instructions from the home ministry in this regard within three weeks and to produce its response on the next date. The Union Home Ministry has said, “The representation made by the petitioner has been received in the Ministry and the same is under process. List this matter on 19th of December, 2024. The outcome of the representation shall be apprised to the Court on the next date of listing.”
The directions to the Centre were made by the Lucknow bench of the high court on Monday seeking details on the action taken on this representation. A division bench of Justices AR Masoodi and Subhash Vidyarthi passed the order on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a Karnataka BJP worker, S Vignesh Shishir.
Earlier on November 6, the Delhi High Court was informed that a CBI probe had been initiated into the citizenship matter.
The matter before the Delhi HC was on a plea by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, who sought directions to the MHA to decide his representation seeking cancellation of Gandhi’s Indian citizenship. In his plea, he further sought a direction to the ministry to furnish a status report on the representation filed by him against the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
In July, the HC had allowed Shishir to withdraw a similar petition and granted him the liberty to pursue remedies under the Citizenship Act. He has again moved the court for a decision on his representations. Shishir told the court that after withdrawing his earlier petition before the high court, he submitted two representations to the competent authority in the MHA. The court had clarified that its focus as of now was solely on whether the central government had received the representations and what decision or action it proposed to take.
Mr Vignesh told media persons, “The court has ordered that a clear and final decision be made on the matter by December 19, the next date of hearing. The home ministry also has to communicate to the court its findings in the matter.” “I am hoping that the government will promptly revoke the Indian citizenship of Rahul Gandhi. We have received direct communication from the UK government that Mr Gandhi’s name is in their citizenship records,” he added.
“We have presented all the documents to the Allahabad High Court…. Under Indian laws dual citizenship is not allowed. Once someone takes the citizenship of another nation, Indian citizenship gets automatically cancelled,” he added.
