SC says no to urgent hearing

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, November 24

The Supreme Court today rejected a plea for an urgent hearing on a PIL for a CBI probe into Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s nationality.

“There is no urgency in the matter,” a Bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu remarked while hearing advocate ML Sharma, who has filed a PIL seeking disqualification of Gandhi as a Lok Sabha MP in the light of an allegation that the Congress leader was a British national.

In his PIL, Sharma has annexed the documents in which Gandhi had reportedly declared himself as a British citizen while getting his company, Backops Limited, registered in the UK in 2003 and in his annual returns submitted to the Registrar of Companies, UK.

Sharma said in the affidavit filed in Amethi, Gandhi had merely mentioned that he was a resident of Delhi without disclosing his nationality. As a result, he had suppressed the fact that he was a British national, he pleaded.