Lucknow: The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court heard the dual citizenship case of Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Monday. During this hearing, the Central Government has filed its reply as the earlier orders of the court. After this, the bench posted the next hearing for December 19.
During the previous hearing on the PIL which sought CBI investigation into the dual citizenship case, the High Court had asked the Central government to file its response before November 25. The High Court had also summoned the details of the action taken on the complaint made by the petitioner to the Centre's competent authority under the Citizenship Act 1955.
In the earlier hearing, the bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Om Prakash Shukla of the High Court had said that it would like know the Government of India's decision on the issue and the action that has taken on the complaint.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Suryabhan Pandey was directed to obtain information from the Union Home Ministry. Petitioner, Vignesh Shishir from Karnataka, had appeared at the hearing and claimed that the PIL was filed by him.
Earlier in July the court had rejected the PIL saying if the petitioner wants he can complain to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act. The petitioner claimed he has evidence of Gandhi being a British citizen and so is ineligible to contest elections. Likewise, he demanded that he should be disqualified from the poll process.
Shishir said when no action was taken even after complaining twice to the competent authority, he filed the PIL again. After this, he personally appeared before the High Court and demanded a CBI inquiry into the matter.
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