PIL In Allahabad High Court Seeks CBI Probe Into LoP Rahul Gandhi's Citizenship

The PIL Plea also seeks to set aside Gandhi's election as an MP from the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat on the ground that he is not an Indian Citizen but a British citizen and, thus, was ineligible to contest the LS Polls.

The PIL plea also submits that Gandhi ceased to be a citizen of Bharat the day he acquired British citizenship. If he acquired Bhartiya citizenship after 2003/2006, he should have filed the same with his nomination paper. It adds that, as a British Citizen, he is disqualified from being chosen as a Member of Parliament given the provisions contained in Article 84 (a) of the Constitution of Bharat.

The petition has been moved by BJP Karnataka member S. Vignesh, who claims that he has received certain information from VSS Sarma, a Canadian Citizen, regarding an official communication (sent to Sarma) by the UK Government concerning Gandhi's British Citizenship.

Readers may note that this petition has been moved around two months after a PIL plea filed by the same petitioner regarding the same subject matter was dismissed as withdrawn by the High Court.

In its order dated July 1, 2024, the High Court had, however, said that the petitioner would be at liberty to approach the competent authority under Section 9(2) of the Citizenship Act, 1955, regarding the issue, as far as it is permissible in law.

In his instant PIL plea, Petitioner Vignesh claims that after his earlier PIL plea was dismissed, he moved a detailed representation before the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, which is still pending. It also states that the petitioner made detailed enquiries into the issue, got several 'new inputs', and sent emails to the UK government seeking details about Gandhi's citizenship records.

In this process, the Petition further states that he learned that the UK government has already received a request from one VSS Sarma (respondent no. 14) seeking the details in 2022. After that, he (PIL petitioner-Vignesh) contacted Sarma, who agreed to share the 'confidential' emails he received from the UK Government.

The PIL petition alleges that in those 'confidential' emails (of 2022), the UK Government has indicated that it has records of Rahul Gandhi's British Nationality, and such 'personal data' is governed by the UK General Data Protection Regulations as per the Country's Data Protection Act, 2018. However, the plea adds that the alleged mail further states that the Government can't provide information about Gandhi unless the UK Govt gets a signed letter of authority from Gandhi.

Against this backdrop, the PIL plea claims that the alleged mail from the UK Government is an 'outright admission' that Gandhi is a citizen of the United Kingdom.

Therefore, the PIL pleads that the CBI conduct a detailed probe into the matter, get a Letter of Rogatory from a competent court in India and extract all the Government records and information available with the Government of the UK/Britain regarding Gandhi's citizenship.

The plea also prays for a direction to the Chief Election Commissioner, Chief Electoral Officer UP, and Returning Officer, Raebareli, to cancel Gandhi's electoral certificate.