SC junks plea for probe into Rahul citizenship row

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a PIL seeking a CBI probe into the citizenship row of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. A Bench of Chief Justice HL Dattu and Justice Amitava Roy dismissed the PIL filed by lawyer ML Sharma, saying PILs cannot be individual-centric. 

To buttress its point, the court referred to one of its recent judgments, which said “in issues pertaining to good governance, the courts ought to be somewhat more liberal in entertaining PIL. However, in matters that may not be of moment or a litigation essentially directed against one organisation or individual ought not to be entertained or should be rarely entertained”. The court also noted that “other remedies are also available to public spirited litigants and they should be encouraged to avail of such remedies”.

It was not persuaded when PIL petitioner advocate Sharma told the court that he had got these documents from the website of Britain’s registrar general of the United Kingdom. It even questioned Sharma about not annexing the representation made to the investigating agency. 

The PIL is centred around an alleged declaration by Gandhi declaring himself a British citizen in the 

documents of a now-dissolved Britain-based company. The issue was first raised by the Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy but was stoutly denied by the Congress.