Received representation on Rahul Gandhi's citizenship: Govt to Allahabad HC

The central government on Monday informed the Allahabad High Court that it has received a representation filed under the Citizenship Act 1955 alleging Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had British citizenship.

However, Deputy Solicitor General of India SB Pandey sought more time to place before the high court bench the status of action on the representation moved by S Vignesh Shishir.

Justices Rajan Roy and Om Prakash Shukla of the Lucknow bench had asked the Centre to apprise the court of the status of the representation after Shishir, a BJP worker hailing from Karnataka, filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) stating that no action has been taken by the Centre in the matter.

The bench fixed October 24 for next hearing.

In the PIL, the petitioner claimed that he made detailed enquiries into the issue of Rahul Gandhi being a British citizen and had several new inputs.

He claims to have accessed confidential emails from the UK Government and these emails have indicated that the UK government has records of Gandhi's citizenship.

The PIL further claimed that in the emails, the UK Government has 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 Gandhi.

As per General Data Protection Regulations framed under the UK's Data Protection Act, 2018, the British Government cannot provide this information unless it gets a signed letter of authority from Rahul Gandhi.

The petitioner has sought a CBI inquiry into the issue. The petitioner 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 that Gandhi is a British citizen but till date, nothing has been done on his demand.

The High Court had on a previous hearing directed the Deputy Solicitor General of India SB Pandey to take instructions from the home ministry about the action taken on the representation.

As the hearing resumed on Monday, Pandey apprised the bench that he has received oral instructions from the home ministry that the representation has been received by the ministry but for further status of the representation, he needs more time to obtain instructions in writing.