Lucknow, 5 May

The Allahabad High Court's Lucknow bench on Monday disposed of a petition questioning Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Indian citizenship and allowed the petitioner to explore other alternative legal remedies.

A bench of Justices AR Masoodi and Rajiv Singh said that as the central government is not able to give any time limit to resolve the petitioner's complaint, there is no justification to keep this petition pending.

The court told petitioner S Vignesh Shishir, a BJP worker from Karnataka, that he is free to adopt other alternative legal remedies.

In the PIL, Sishir had claimed that he has documents and some emails of the British government which prove that Rahul Gandhi is a British citizen, and due to this he is ineligible to contest elections in India and cannot hold the post of a Lok Sabha member.

In the previous hearing on 21 April, the court was told that the Centre had written to the UK government seeking details about claims that Gandhi had British citizenship.

After the submission, the bench had granted time to the central government till 5 May to place before it the outcome of a representation moved by the petitioner against the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, seeking cancellation of his 2024 Lok Sabha election over claims that he had British citizenship.

Earlier, the petitioner had told the court that he sent complaints twice to the competent authority regarding Rahul'Gandhi's alleged dual citizenship, but no action was taken by them.

While hearing the PIL on 25 November, the court sought information from the central government regarding its decision on the representation of the petitioner.

Deputy Solicitor General SB Pandey had informed the court that acting on the petitioner's representation, the ministry concerned had written to the UK Government seeking details about Gandhi's alleged British citizenship and hence the government needed more time to take a final decision on the petitioner's representation.