Supreme Court dismisses plea seeking to debar Rahul Gandhi from contesting Lok Sabha polls

The Supreme Court Thursday dismissed a plea seeking direction to the Centre and the Election Commission to debar Congress President Rahul Gandhi from contesting Lok Sabha elections till the issue of his citizenship is decided.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi rejected the contention of the petitioners, who said that in a form along with the annual data of a UK-based company in 2005-06, it was allegedly mentioned that Rahul Gandhi is a British citizen.

"If some company in some form mentions his nationality as British, does he become a British citizen," the bench also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna told the petitioners.

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Last week, the Home Ministry had issued a notice acting on a complaint by BJP Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy.

The complaint states that the Congress president had declared his nationality as British in a UK-based company.

The BJP leader demanded Rahul should dismiss these documents in a press conference and tell that he has not authenticated them.

The issue of Gandhi's dual citizenship was first raised by Subramanian Swamy in 2015, where he had written to the Prime Minister to deny the Congress president Indian citizenship. In November 2015, the Supreme Court has dismissed public interest litigation demanding CBI probe into the citizenship row noting that PILs were not meant to target one individual or organisation but was a medium to resolve human suffering through good governance.

A bench of then, Chief Justice of India H L Dattu and Justice Amitava Roy had rubbished the plea questioning the source and authenticity of the documents attached to thepetition.

In 2016, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had forwarded to the parliamentary ethics committee, headed by veteran BJP leader L K Advani, Swamy's "complaint of ethical misconduct" against Gandhi that he had accessed documents in which the Congress leader had called himself "British".

In his reply to the ethics committee on the allegations of British citizenship, Gandhi had said he had never "sought or acquired British citizenship" and that his "identity is that of an Indian".

He also questioned the committee's decision to look into a "complaint that is not in order", claiming it was "an endeavour to malign" him.

The panel had issued a notice to him, seeking an explanation to whether he had once declared himself a British citizen on the legal papers of a company in the United Kingdom.

(With inputs from agencies)