HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday posted the case pertaining to the citizenship of TRS MLA Chennamaneni Ramesh to March 2 for final hearing, considering the State government’s plea to file a counter affidavit in the issue.
Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili was dealing with the petition filed by the Vemulawada MLA, which challenged the Union Home Ministry’s order declaring him not a citizen of India. According to the order, he has obtained Indian citizenship fraudulently by placing fictitious documents before the Ministry. When the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, Additional Advocate General (AAG) J Ramachandra Rao informed the court that the Centre had issued the impugned order without seeking the opinion of the Telangana government.
In fact, law and order is the subject of the State government and the Centre should consult it on the above issue, he said and urged the court to grant the State one month time to file a counter affidavit. The court gave the government two weeks to file the counter. Disputing with the AAG’s submissions, advocate V Ravi Kiran Rao, appearing for the complainant Adi Srinivas, said that the State government had never been involved in the case which was pending for the last couple of years. Pursuant to an earlier direction of the court, the Centre had also filed an affidavit wherein it had stated that Ramesh is a German citizen as on date, he said.
The petitioner’s counsel, Y Rama Rao, submitted that in March, 2009, Ramesh had intimated the acquisition of Indian citizenship to the German authorities in Berlin as per Section 5 (1) (F) of the Citizenship Act. According to German law, if a citizen voluntarily acquires the citizenship of other country, he would automatically lose his citizenship of that country.
The German authorities had informed the Home Ministry that Ramesh might use his old passport as he was not a German citizen. He has already relieved his German citizenship. The counsel urged the court to hold a physical hearing and permit him to place the judgment copies to support his contention on the issue.After hearing the above submissions, Justice Shavili posted the matter to March 2 for final hearing.