Rahul Gandhi citizenship PIL: Centre tells Allahabad HC it needs more time to act

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi

The Union government on Monday informed Allahabad High Court's Lucknow bench that it has received a plea seeking "cancellation of British citizenship" of Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, and sought more time to act on the plea.

The PIL was filed by Karnataka BJP worker S Vignesh Shishir seeking HC's intervention after the Centre allegedly didn't act on his plea to order CBI to probe how Rahul got British citizenship and cancel the document.

Deputy Solicitor General of India SB Pandey has sought more time to place before the high court bench the status of action on the representation moved by 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 filed the PIL. The bench fixed October 24 for next hearing.

The petitioner 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.

(With PTI inputs)