Lucknow, Sep 25 (PTI) The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court on Wednesday asked the Centre whether it has taken any decision on a representation filed under Citizenship Act, 1955 asking it to inquire into allegations that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has British citizenship.
A division bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Om Prakash Shukla was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) moved by BJP worker from Karnataka, S Vignesh Shishir.
The bench has fixed September 30 as the next date of hearing in the case.
In the PIL, the petitioner has claimed that he has done detailed enquiries into the issue of Gandhi being a British citizen and has got several new inputs.
He also claimed to have accessed confidential e-mails from the UK government on the issue.
The PIL further said that in the mails, 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 and 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 Gandhi.
The petitioner has sought a CBI inquiry into the allegations of Gandhi’s British citizenship.
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 but till date, nothing has been done on his demand.
During the hearing, the high court noted that a similar plea had been moved earlier by the petitioner. But the earlier plea was withdrawn by him, with a liberty to approach the competent authority.
Now, the petitioner claimed to have to moved representation with the competent authority in the Union Home Ministry seeking cancellation of Rahul Gandhi’s British citizenship.
At this, the court directed the Assistant Solicitor General of India, S B Pandey, to take instructions on the representation from the home ministry. PTI COR KIS KVK KVK
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