2 min readNew DelhiApr 18, 2026 05:54 AM IST
The Allahabad High Court on Friday allowed a petition by a Karnataka-based BJP member, Vignesh Shishir, seeking a probe into allegations that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also holds a British citizenship.
Justice Subhash Vidyarthi set aside an order of a Lucknow trial court in January, which declined to entertain the petitioner’s plea. The complete order of the High Court is yet to be made public.
The trial court had earlier said that under legislation and citizenship rules, it had “no jurisdiction to adjudicate the question relating to the citizenship or nationality of anyone” while ruling that “the present application is not maintainable and liable to be rejected”.
The petitioner had alleged that Gandhi holds a dual citizenship and has allegedly “forged and manipulated multiple passports, concealed by the Indian government”. The petition included documents, including a purported British government reply under the Data Protection Act, 2018, refusing to provide unauthorised public information on citizenship.
The petitioner alleged that the refusal to respond to a query “is nothing lesser than outright admission of the Home Office, Govt. of U.K. that Rahul Gandhi is a citizen of Britain because rules, regulations and act enacted by U.K. Govt. will be only applicable to the citizen of U.K. and Britain, not to any Indian Citizen at all”.
In July 2025, a different bench of the Allahabad High Court had dismissed a similar plea by the petitioner, with liberty to approach the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
In 2019, a Supreme Court bench headed by then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had dismissed a petition seeking directions to the Centre and Election Commission to bar Gandhi from contesting the Lok Sabha elections till allegations over his citizenship were
resolved.
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