The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on Monday dismissed the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) alleging that Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, holds dual citizenship of India and the United Kingdom. The PIL was filed by BJP worker S Vignesh Shishir from Karnataka, claiming that Rahul Gandhi was a citizen of Britain as well as India, making him ineligible to contest elections under Article 84 (A) of the Constitution.

During the hearing, the Lucknow Bench directed the Central Government to submit details of the action taken so far on the case, after which the case was dismissed. Earlier, the Court, in its last hearing, expressed dissatisfaction with the status report by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to directly address whether Gandhi is an Indian citizen.

The bench had then granted 10 days for the government to submit a revised report, explicitly answering the question of Gandhi’s citizenship status following a petition filed alleging that the Congress MP has dual citizenship. In 2019, the MHA issued a notice to Gandhi regarding his citizenship after receiving a complaint from then Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy.

Swamy has alleged that a company named Backops Limited was registered in the United Kingdom in the year 2003 and that Gandhi was one of the Directors and secretaries of the company. Subramanian Swamy has also stated that the Congress leader had declared his nationality as British in a UK-based company.

“It has been further brought out in the complaint that in the Company’s Annual Returns filed on October 10, 2005, and October 31, 2006, your date of birth has been given as June 19, 1970, and that you had declared your nationality as British. Further, in the Dissolution application dated 17/02/2009 of the above-referred company, your nationality has been mentioned as British,” the notice read.