Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi (file photo)Kottayam: The UK home office has not given a clear answer to a request made under the Freedom of Information Act regarding British citizenship of Rahul Gandhi. The home office’s information rights team has explained that it is neither confirming nor denying whether it has data on Rahul.
The home office has clarified that, as per the Freedom of Information Act, 2000, it is bound to provide information with the government. At the same time, as per section 40(5) of the Data Protection Act of 1998, the home office has the right not to reveal whether it has information about an individual, it said. In a letter dated January 5, the team stated that an appeal could be filed with the information commissioner if the reply was not satisfactory. The home office gave the reply after two reviews by the department.
The request made in December as per the Freedom of Information Act had asked whether Rahul had British citizenship and British passport. The letter stated that revealing information about an individual’s citizenship would breach that person’s privacy and violate the Data Protection Act.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had accused that, as a director of Backops, a company registered in Britain, Rahul himself had attested in its annual return that he was a British citizen. Swamy wants action against Rahul since India does not allow dual citizenship. The complaint regarding this given by Mahesh Giri, a BJP MP, has been handed over to the Lok Sabha ethics committee, chaired by BJP leader L.K. Advani, by speaker Sumitra Mahajan.
Swamy will appear before the ethics committee in the coming days and give his statement. As per the Representation of the People Act, only an Indian citizen has the right to become an MP. If an inquiry proves that he has British citizenship, Rahul will lose his position as an MP.
The returns submitted by Backops to the UK’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs on October 10, 2005, and October 31, 2006, had put Rahul as a British citizen. The ministry had earlier stated that it did not scrutinise information in the returns thoroughly and it could be a clerical error. At the same time, there was also an allegation that Rahul featured in the list of British voters. The Supreme Court had rejected last year a public interest litigation on Rahul’s citizenship.
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