The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a petition seeking to debar Congress President Rahul Gandhi from contesting the Lok Sabha elections on grounds that he holds a British citizenship, reported Bar and Bench.
Two activists had filed the writ petition, according to Live Law. They cited documents of Backops Limited registered in the United Kingdom in 2003, of which Gandhi was one of the directors and secretary.
“Some company in some form has mentioned Rahul Gandhi as British citizen, so does he become British citizen?” asks Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi during the hearing on Thursday.
On April 22, the returning officer in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, had declared that Gandhi’s nomination papers were valid after four individuals objected to it alleging discrepancies. Dhruv Lal, one of the four people who raised objections, claimed that Gandhi has declared himself a British citizen in the certificate of incorporation of a company registered in the United Kingdom.
The Ministry of Home Affairs had on April 30 issued a notice to Gandhi based on a complaint filed by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subramanian Swamy about his alleged British citizenship. Swamy had cited the same documents. He claimed that the company’s annual returns filed in 2005 and 2006 showed Gandhi’s nationality as British. Swamy claimed that an application for the company’s dissolution filed in 2009 also mentioned Gandhi’s nationality as British.
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