The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has given the Home Ministry four weeks to decide on the issue of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi's citizenship. The Ministry had sought eight weeks' time to respond, as per reports.
This is not the first time that a matter relating to Rahul Gandhi's citizenship has reached a court.
Currently, the court is hearing a petition filed by Karnataka-based lawyer Vignesh Shishir seeking a CBI investigation on Rahul Gandhi's citizenship on grounds of new information. Shishir is reportedly also affiliated with the BJP.
He claimed that he got confirmation directly from the UK government that Rahul Gandhi's name is in their citizenship records.
"We have presented all documents. Under Indian laws, dual citizenship is not allowed. Once someone takes the citizenship of another nation, Indian citizenship gets cancelled," NDTV quoted Vignesh Shishir as saying.
In a previous hearing last November, a bench of Justices Rajan Roy and Om Prakash Shukla directed Deputy Solicitor General SB Pandey to submit details on actions taken regarding the plea, but no response has been filed yet. The Home Ministry was given three weeks to reply.
Meanwhile, last month, the Delhi High Court, hearing a similar plea filed by ex-BJP MP Subramanian Swamy in 2019, asked the union government to seek instructions. Swamy, who first raised the issue in 2015, informed a bench led by Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya that he had written about Rahul Gandhi's citizenship status, but no action was taken.
The Delhi High Court previously noted the existence of dual proceedings in this case—one in Allahabad and another in Delhi—but questioned the centre's inaction. Swamy's plea is based on claims that a now-dissolved British company had listed Rahul Gandhi as a UK national in some of its records.
