- विज्ञापन -
Lucknow: The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on Monday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that accused Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, of holding dual citizenship of India and the United Kingdom.
The PIL was filed by BJP worker S Vignesh Shishir from Karnataka, alleging Gandhi’s British citizenship made him ineligible to contest elections under Article 84(A) of the Indian Constitution.
During the proceedings, the court ordered the Central Government to provide details of the actions taken so far regarding the case. Following this, the court dismissed the PIL.
Earlier, the court had expressed dissatisfaction with the status report submitted by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which did not explicitly confirm Gandhi’s Indian citizenship. The court had given the government 10 days to submit a revised report that clearly addressed Gandhi’s citizenship status, after a petition had questioned whether he holds dual citizenship.
This issue re-emerged in 2019 when the MHA issued a notice to Gandhi following a complaint from then Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy. Swamy alleged that Gandhi was a director of Backops Limited, a UK-based company registered in 2003, and claimed that Gandhi had declared his British nationality in that company’s filings.
Swamy further alleged that Gandhi’s date of birth—June 19, 1970—was listed in the company’s annual returns filed in 2005 and 2006, and that Gandhi had declared himself a British citizen. The notice also stated that in the company’s dissolution application in 2009, Gandhi’s nationality was again noted as British.
