Supreme Court dismisses plea on Rahul Gandhi's citizenship

NEW DELHI: The SC has dismissed a petition which sought its intervention from disallowing Congress chief Rahul Gandhi from contesting polls as “he was a British citizen.” Counsel for petitioners Jai Bhagwan Goyal and CP Tyagi contended Gandhi was a British citizen based on tax filings of a company in a particular year. The Congress had dismissed the charge and had attributed it to clerical error.


“Does he become a British citizen just because some company wrote he is British,” asked chief justice Ranjan Gogoi. The CJI demanded to know the locus standi of the petitioners in the case. The duo claimed that they were “public spirited persons in social service and politics.” Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna were part of the three-judge bench which heard the case. Gupta demanded to know why they had moved the court now. Their lawyer said that Rahul Gandhi was an aspirant for the country’s top office and was in the fray and the court had to intervene. “Who wouldn’t want to be the prime minister,” the CJI asked, before dismissing the petition.