SC to hear next week plea on Rahul's citizenship row

Two Delhi residents have approached the Supreme Court seeking a direction to debar Congress president Rahul Gandhi from contesting General Elections, 2019 till the question of "acquisition of British citizenship by him" was decided.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna on Thursday agreed to list the petition for consideration next week on a plea by a counsel for urgent hearing.

In their writ petition, Jai Bhagwan Goyal and Chandra Prakash Tyagi sought a direction to debar Rahul from contesting polls from Amethi and Wayanad constituency till a decision was taken on a complaint against him for acquiring dual citizenship.

They also sought a declaration that he was not a citizen of India and incompetent to contest polls under the Representation of People Act, 1951.

The petitioners also contended that Rahul's name should be removed from the electoral roll.

On April 29, the Ministry of Home Affairs has issued a notice to Rahul clarify within a fortnight factual position on his citizenship. The move has come on a representation by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy contending Rahul had declared himself as a British citizen in records of a company, Backops Limited. It was alleged Rahul was one of the directors of the company.