A Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has postponed its order for filing an FIR against Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in connection with the alleged dual citizenship controversy.
The court will now hear from the parties on whether advance notice to the accused was legally required.
A division bench of Justice Subhash Vidyarthi, which on Friday observed in an oral order that clear crimes appear to have been committed against Gandhi, and allowed the Uttar Pradesh government to hand over the investigation to a central agency, said it would first examine the legal position on issuing the notice before passing any direction.
This development came after the bench, before signing its order, came across a complete judgment of the court requiring the issuance of notice to the proposed accused in such matters.
The court noted that none of the lawyers drew its attention to this legal requirement in the previous session.
The court postponed the matter to April 20.
The order was passed on a petition filed by Karnataka-based BJP worker S Vignesh Shishir.
During Friday’s proceedings, Deputy Attorney General of India S P Pandey submitted records to the Center pertaining to the citizenship controversy, while government counsel VK Singh on behalf of the state submitted that the allegations prima facie revealed cognizable offences.
After the hearing, the bench noted that the material on record indicated that Gandhi had committed cognizable crimes and the matter warranted investigation.
In his petition, Shishir claimed that Gandhi was a British citizen and had incorporated a company, M/s Backops Ltd, in August 2003, declaring his nationality as British.
The petitioner claimed that Gandhi filed the company’s annual returns in October 2005 and October 2006 and listed his nationality as British, and that the company was dissolved in February 2009.
He has sought registration of an FIR against the former Congress president under the provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Act, the Official Secrets Act, the Foreigners Act and the Passports Act.
The complaint was initially filed before a special MP/MLA court at Rae Bareli and was later transferred to Lucknow at the request of the petitioner.
