New Delhi:Hearing the petition seeking the Home Ministry's decision on the demand for cancellation of the Indian citizenship of opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, the Delhi High Court directed the petition, filed in the Allahabad High Court, to be filed in Delhi HC. The bench headed by Chief Justice Manmohan ordered the next hearing on December 6.
On October 9, the court gave time to the petitioner and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy to file the order of Allahabad High Court. On September 27, the court said if the hearing on this matter was also going on in Allahabad High Court, then "we could not hear it".
The court had directed ASG Chetan Sharma to inform the court about the status report of the ongoing hearing on this matter in Allahabad High Court. The High Court had asked the ASG to provide a copy of the petition filed in Allahabad High Court. The Chief Justice said he would continue the hearing only after seeing the status report of the petition filed in Allahabad High Court because he did not want the Delhi High Court to hear the case that falls under the jurisdiction of Allahabad High Court.
Earlier on August 20, a single bench of the high court had ordered the transfer of the petition to another bench.
Justice Sanjeev Narula's bench said the petitioner failed to show that there was any constitutional right in this. However, the petitioner said there was a public interest issue involved, so the bench hearing the PIL would hear this petition. After that, the court ordered the petition be transferred to the bench headed by the Acting Chief Justice.
During the hearing, Swamy argued that he had written to the home ministry in 2019 that Backops Limited was registered in Britain in 2003 where Gandhi was one of the directors. The petition states that in the annual income tax returns filed by the company on October 10, 2005, and October 31, 2006, Rahul Gandhi has been declared a British citizen.
The petition said the application filed by the company on February 17, 2009, to dissolve itself, Gandhi's citizenship has been mentioned as that of Britain. Doing so is a violation of Article 9 of the Constitution and the Indian Citizenship Act. Article 9 states that if any person voluntarily takes the citizenship of another country, then he cannot remain a citizen of India.
The Union Home Ministry wrote to Rahul Gandhi on April 29, 2019, asking him to give clarification in this regard within two weeks, but no clarity has been made five years down the line. In such a situation, the court issued guidelines to the home ministry seeking a decision in this regard.
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