Lucknow: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has dismissed as withdrawn a writ petition challenging Congress neta Rahul Gandhi’s Indian citizenship after the petitioners failed to produce any concrete document to substantiate their allegation that he was a British citizen.The writ petition, filed by Ashok Pande and Rajnish Kumar Singh, sought issuance of a writ of quo warranto challenging Rahul’s right to continue as Rae Bareli MP on the grounds that he was a British national.During the hearing, a bench of Justice Shekhar B Saraf and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary was informed that the petitioners had earlier raised the same issue in 2015 and 2019.A coordinate bench, while dismissing the 2015 petition, had held that any grievance concerning the alleged loss of citizenship had to be raised before Central govt in view of Section 9(2) of the Citizenship Act, 1955. In the 2019 petition too, the petitioner was given liberty to approach Central govt by filing a fresh representation.In the present plea, petitioner Rajnish alleged that Rahul had incorporated a UK-based company, Backops Limited, in 2003 and had declared himself to be its director and major shareholder as well as a British national. However, when the bench asked the petitioner Rajnish about the basis of the allegation, he was unable to produce any document relating to the company’s incorporation, records of the Registrar of Companies in Britain, or any declaration purportedly made by Rahul claiming British citizenship.The only document relied upon by the petitioner was an alleged letter from Cambridge University concerning the studies of a person named Raul Vinci.The court observed that the document did not, in any manner, establish the allegations.The petitioner Rajnish thereafter sought permission to withdraw the petition. The bench allowed the request and dismissed the writ petition as withdrawn.
