Allahabad High Court Asks Centre Whether It Has Taken Any Decision On Rahul Gandhi's Citizenship Issue

The Allahabad High Court has asked the Centre whether it has taken any decision regarding citizenship issue of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. 

The Lucknow Bench asked the Centre about the status of representation filed under Citizenship Act, 1955 asking it to inquire into the allegations that Rahul Gandhi has British citizenship.

A Division Bench comprising Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Om Prakash Shukla asked thus in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) preferred by S. Vignesh Shishir, BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) worker from Karnataka.

In the aforesaid PIL, the petitioner had claimed that he did detailed enquiries into the issue of Rahul being a British citizen and has got several new inputs. He further claimed to have accessed confidential e-mails from the UK (United Kingdom) Government on this issue.

The PIL further claimed that the UK government indicated that it has records of Rahul Gandhi's British nationality but it has refused to disclose details on the ground that this is "personal data" of Rahul. It was provided that as per General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) framed under the UK's Data Protection Act, 2018, the British Government cannot provide such information unless it gets a signed letter of authority from Rahul.

The petitioner, therefore, sought an inquiry by the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) with respect to this issue. He also said that he filed a detailed statutory representation under Section 9(2) of the Citizenship Act asking the Central Government to inquire into the issue but yet, nothing has been done on his demand.

The High Court in the above regard noted that a similar petition was filed earlier by the petitioner but the same was withdrawn by him, with a liberty to approach the competent authority.

Hence, the Court has directed the Assistant Solicitor General of India (ASGI), S. B. Pandey, to take instructions on the representation from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Accordingly, the Court listed the case on September 30, 2024 for further hearing.

With PTI Inputs