Supreme Court junks plea to debar Rahul Gandhi from Lok Sabha contest

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed at the admission stage a writ petition filed by two activists for a direction to the EC to debar Congress President Rahul Gandhi from contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Amethi and Wayanad constituencies till his citizenship issue is decided.

A Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna told counsel for the two petitioners, “Some company has mentioned Rahul Gandhi as a British citizen, so does he become a British citizen? He is not aspiring to be Prime Minister. But if 123 crore people say ‘let he be the PM’ would you mind.”

 When the CJI asked counsel “who are you”, the



counsel said “his client was a public spirited person and a social worker, who is also in politics.” The CJI remarked, “You are in the politics of social work”.

Justice Gupta asked the counsel, “Why have you chosen 2019 to come to court with the apprehension about Mr Gandhi’s citizenship status.”

When counsel said “the documents surfaced only in 2015”, justice Gupta said “still you waited till 2019 to approach the court.” The bench then dismissed the petition. The “activists” alleged that Mr Gandhi has acquired British citizenship, which, according to them, is evident from documents filed by Backops Ltd before the Registrar of Companies for England and Wales.