Allahabad High Court seeks Centre’s records on dual citizenship complaint against Rahul Gandhi

The Allahabad High Court on Monday directed the central government to produce all records related to a complaint alleging dual citizenship against Congress MP Rahul Gandhi , while hearing a petition seeking registration of an FIR and a detailed investigation into the matter.

A bench of Justice Rajeev Singh at the Lucknow bench asked the Centre to place the complete file related to the controversy before it and posted the matter for further hearing on March 19 . The direction came while the court was hearing a petition filed by S Vignesh Shishir, a BJP worker from Karnataka, challenging a January 28, 2026 order of a special MP/MLA court in Lucknow which rejected his plea seeking registration of an FIR against Gandhi.

The special MP/MLA court had ruled that it was not competent to decide issues relating to citizenship. In his petition before the high court, the complainant sought directions for registration of an FIR and a detailed probe into the allegations. He invoked provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita , the Official Secrets Act , the Foreigners Act and the Passport Act , arguing that acquiring citizenship of another country could make a person ineligible to hold public office in India.

During the hearing, the bench also asked the Centre’s counsel about the action taken on earlier complaints alleging that Gandhi had declared British nationality in official documents. Following the query, the court directed the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to submit the entire record related to the matter.

The controversy stems from filings linked to the UK-registered company Backops Limited , where Gandhi had served as a director. Some documents submitted to the British corporate registry Companies House allegedly described his nationality as British, which triggered the citizenship dispute.

The issue had earlier gained national attention after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy raised the matter and wrote to the government urging it to examine the documents. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs had subsequently sought clarification from Gandhi regarding the allegation.

Rahul Gandhi has denied the claims and maintained that he has never held citizenship of any country other than India. He has described the allegations as politically motivated attempts to malign his reputation, while leaders of the Congress party have suggested that the reference to British nationality in the company filings could have been a clerical or typographical error.

Questions over citizenship or foreign nationality have occasionally surfaced in Indian politics in the past as well. Congress leader Sonia Gandhi , who was born in Italy, faced political criticism over her foreign origin before becoming an Indian citizen in 1983, though there was no legal dispute over dual citizenship. Similarly, former Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa had at one point faced speculation regarding possible foreign citizenship during her early career, though the issue never resulted in legal proceedings.

The complaint in the present case was initially filed before a special MP/MLA court in Rae Bareli. On a petition by the complainant, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on December 17, 2025 transferred the criminal complaint case to Lucknow. After the special court dismissed the plea in January this year, the petitioner approached the high court challenging that decision. The high court will now examine the records produced by the Centre at the next hearing on March 19 before deciding the future course of action in the case.