LUCKNOW: The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday dismissed as withdrawn a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking cancellation of the citizenship of Rahul Gandhi and a ban on his overseas travel while the matter is pending, after expressing doubt over the authenticity of the documents presented by the petitioner.
A division bench of the Lucknow bench, comprising Justice Attau Rehman Masoodi and Justice Ajai Kumar Srivastava-I, questioned petitioner S Vignesh Shishir, a BJP worker from Karnataka, about the legitimacy of the foreign passport he claimed Rahul Gandhi possessed.
“Who verified the UK passport and who is the issuing authority?” the bench asked, further enquiring whether the authenticity of the passport had been established.
In response, Shishir told the court that he had a video of Rahul Gandhi holding a passport of another country. The bench then suggested, “File an RTI. We cannot help you.”
This was Shishir’s third PIL on Gandhi’s citizenship issue. The earlier two pleas had been disposed of without any effective relief. The latest PIL was filed four days after his second one was dismissed by the same bench.
In that hearing, on 5 May, the court had granted Shishir the liberty to explore other legal remedies, after the Centre informed it that it could not provide a timeline for resolving the issue.
While dismissing the current petition, the bench observed that there was no new or relevant material to seek the court’s indulgence and permitted the petitioner to withdraw it, with liberty to file a review of the order.
Shishir contended that he had received correspondence from the UK government confirming that Gandhi’s passport had been forwarded to the Union Home Ministry. He urged the court to direct the Centre to make the UK passport public.
The court, however, declined to issue such directions, noting that Shishir had already submitted a representation to the Home Ministry and should await its response.
In his plea, Shishir had sought a direction to the Union of India to cancel Rahul Gandhi’s Indian passport on the grounds that he was allegedly not a citizen of India.
He also urged the court to initiate criminal proceedings under Section 12 of the Passports Act, 1967, for allegedly furnishing false information to obtain an Indian passport.
Shishir claimed there was a high probability that Gandhi “would abscond/flee and seek asylum in a foreign nation to evade the process of law in India” if not restrained from travelling abroad during the pendency of the matter.
He further told the bench that a notice had been issued to Gandhi by the Centre based on the material he had submitted to the court.