The Delhi High Court sought the Union government’s stand on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking direction to cancel the Indian citizenship of Rahul Gandhi, who has “declared himself a British citizen”.
This PIL was filed by BJP leader, Subramanian Swamy. It was filed by advocate Satya Sabharwal on August 6, 2019, alleged that Rahul Gandhi had ‘voluntarily disclosed’ to the British government that he was a citizen of British nationality, amounting to holding a British passport. Swami charged that Rahul had violated Article 9 of the Constitution, read with the Indian Citizenship Act, and would cease to be an Indian citizen.
“A Company named Backops Limited was registered in the United Kingdom in the year 2003, with address 51 Southgate Street, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 9EH, where Gandhi was one of the Directors and Secretary of the said company. In the Company’s Annual Returns filed on 10/10/2005 and 31/10/2006, your (Gandhi) date of birth has been given as 19/06/1970 and you had declared your nationality as British. Further, in the Dissolution application dated 17/02/2009 of the above-referred company, your nationality has been mentioned as British,” said the Union Home Ministry in correspondence to Rahul Gandhi on Swamy’s complaint.
The Central government’s proxy lawyer was requested orally to take instructions in the case by a bench consisting of Acting Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela.
After learning that the former standing counsel had recently been appointed as a senior advocate and that the case needed to be assigned to a new counsel, the Bench will also include Justice Tushar Rao Gedela. The upcoming hearing is to be held on January 13, 2025.
