Telangana High Court Upholds Cancellation Of Ex-BRS MLA's Citizenship, Imposes ₹30 Lakh Costs
Fareedunnisa Huma
13 Dec 2024 11:31 AM IST
Telangana High Court has dismissed a plea filed by MLA Dr Ramesh Chennamaneni with a cost of 30 lakhs, challenging an order passed by the Under Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, holding that the petitioner had ceased to be a citizen of India.
Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy who was hearing the matter upheld the cancellation upholding that the petitioner on multiple occasions had made false misrepresentations to the Government of India and the Court and had taken the authorities for a ride.
The Bench also considered that based on these false representations the petitioner even contested the elections and won in 2009, 2010 and 2014 which amounted to playing fraud on the nation. Thus, the petition was dismissed with a cost of Rs 30 lakhs. The Court held:
“….travelled to Germany several times and indulged in luxury litigation and taken undue advantage of loopholes in the system and Court process and has been elected as MLA in 2009 (General Elections), 2010 (Bye-Elections), 2014 (General Elections) and 2018 (General Elections); and despite the same, if this Court is lenient, it would send a wrong message to the unscrupulous litigants and public in general. Thus, the writ petition deserves to be dismissed with exemplary costs. 44. For the aforesaid reasons, the writ petition is dismissed with costs of Rs.25,00,000/- (Rupees twenty-five lakhs only) payable to respondent No.5 for the loss and mental agony suffered by him for more than one and half decade and Rs.5,00,000/- (Rupees five lakhs only) payable to the High Court Legal Services Committee, Hyderabad, totalling to Rs.30,00,000/- (Rupees thirty lakhs only) within a period of one (1) month from today.”
Background
The petitioner submitted that he was born and brought up in Telangana, did his schooling in Telangana, and later on went to study higher education in Germany, where he settled down and acquired citizenship in 1993.
In 2007, he returned to India, and on January 22nd, 2007 was granted citizenship of India once again after following due procedure as stipulated in section 5 of the Citizenship Act, 1955. In 2009, he was given his Indian Citizenship Certificate and following this, he enrolled as a politician and his name reflected him the electoral rolls.
Challenging the certificate issued to the petitioner, a Political adversary Mr. Adi Srinivas filed a revision against the petitioner under section 15 of the Citizenship Act, contending that the certificate was obtained by misrepresentation. Based on this, a show cause notice was issued to the petitioner in July 2009, seeking an explanation, of why action should not be initiated against him.
Aggrieved by the same, the petitioner filed WP 18259 of 2017, which was disposed of with a direction to consider the representation of the petitioner. In the same year, (2017) the competent authority conducted an enquiry and concluded that the petitioner had ceased to be a citizen of India.
Following this, the petitioner once again approached the high court, wherein the Court directed the petitioner to dispose the application within 6 weeks from the date of the 'deprivation order'
Following this, the Undersecretary held that the petitioner had stopped being a citizen of the Country. Yet again the petitioner approached the High Court, and the Court set aside the orders passed in 2017. The Court held that the citizenship of the petitioner could only be terminated if the continuation of the citizenship is not conducive to the public good.
In 2019, the petitioner was yet again held as not being a citizen of India.
According to the findings of the Union Government, the petitioner had suppressed the fact that he had left the country after making an application under section 5 of the Citizenship Act, and such concealment attracts the provision of Section 10(2) which amounts to fraud.
As per the Act, an applicant needs to be residing within India for 12 years before making the application. As per the inquiry, the petitioner had left India on multiple occasions and stayed in India only for 96 days before making an application.
In 2020, the Court passed interim orders directing the Centre and the petitioner to get in touch with the Indian Embassy and request information regarding the German passport.
Following this the petitioner filed his report in the same year. He stated that in Germany, a person automatically loses their German citizenship, upon becoming a citizen of another country. Further, he had obtained an Indian passport in 2020, but was permitted to use his German passport due to the grace period of expiry. He stated that in India, he was permitted a period of 3 years, within which he was to submit his previous passport, and intended to do the same in the year 2020, however Covid hit and due to the lockdown, the same became impossible.
On the other hand, the Centre filed an office Memorandum issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2020, confirming the status of the petitioner as a German National. It was also shown that the petitioner held a PIO (persons of Indian Origin) card issued in 2002 and valid up to 2017. A fresh German passport was also issued to the petitioner in 2013, which stayed valid till 2023. Thus, proving beyond any reasonable doubt that he owned a German Passport in 2009.
A letter was also filed, which was written by the petitioner himself, addressed to the Deputy Solicitor General of India admitting to holding a German Passport in 2019. The German Government has also opined that he is a German Citizen. The Centre contended that the petitioner was taking the court for a 'ride'. And then he had never used his Indian passport to travel.
Proceedings before High Court
The first issue before the Court was to determine whether or not the petitioner had provided any wrong information. At the outset, the Bench noted, that since the inception of the proceedings against the petitioner, the petitioner was not able to provide any credible evidence to prove that he had not left India in the 12 month period preceding his application.
“The petitioner has not been able to urge any new facts or raised any contention to differ with the opinion of the COI; thus, this Court does not have any hesitation in holding that the petitioner indulged in giving false statement in his application for citizenship dated 31.03.2008. answered.”
The second question was to determine, whether depriving the petitioner of his citizenship would be conducive to public good. The Court noted that the petitioner made a false representation in his communication dated 2008 about his visit to Germany to obtain an Indian citizenship, which amounts to playing fraud on the Government of India. The Bench further noted, that even in the previous Writ petitions filed by the petitioner, the Bench has made observations that the petitioner had submitted false information.
The Court concluded that subsequent events can be taken into consideration while disposing of authoritative pronouncements in the event public interest is involved and that public interest cannot be given a narrow and restricted meaning.
Thus, with that observation an exemplary cost of 30 lakhs was imposed on the petitioner and the writ was dismissed.
WP 25850 of 2019
Dr. Ramesh Chennamaneni vs. Union of India
Counsel for petitioner: Y. Rama Rao
Counsel for respondents: B. Narsimha Sharma (Additional Solicitor General), Gadi Praveen Kumer, Deputy solicitor general, V.T, Kalyan, Additonal Advocate General, T. Rajinikath Reddy and V Rohith.
