‘Political grudge behind MLA’s citizenship case’

Hyderabad: Arguments on MLA Chennamaneni Ramesh’s citizenship case took place in the court of Justice Vijayasen Reddy in Telangana High Court here on Tuesday. “Ramesh acquired Indian citizenship in 2009 obliging all requirements and won continuously four times in elections. Political grudge was the main motive of opponents filing the case,” his counsel pointed out […]

Hyderabad: Arguments on MLA Chennamaneni Ramesh’s citizenship case took place in the court of Justice Vijayasen Reddy in Telangana High Court here on Tuesday.

“Ramesh acquired Indian citizenship in 2009 obliging all requirements and won continuously four times in elections. Political grudge was the main motive of opponents filing the case,” his counsel pointed out during the arguments.

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According to Counsel, Ramesh has relieved his German citizenship in compliance with Section 5 (1) (F) of Indian Citizenship Act and in conformity with Article 17 of German Citizenship Law. Key documents of the German citizenship authority were already submitted to the court. Ramesh is an Indian citizen and Section 10.3 of Citizenship Act endorsed the same. The court had issued a stay in 2019 in favour of Ramesh citizenship based on Section 10.3 and the Ministry of Home was bound by it, the Counsel pointed out.

The High Court in its judgment on July 10 in 2019 had set aside the orders of the Central government issued on December 13, 2017 cancelling the citizenship of Ramesh. The High Court judgement clearly emphasized that it was open to the competent authority to terminate the citizenship of the petitioner only if it is found that his continuation of citizenship was not conducive to public good quoting provision in Section 10(3) of the Citizenship Act, 1955.

Court’s attention was also drawn to Section 10(3) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 which reads “the Central government shall not deprive a person of citizenship under this Section unless it is satisfied that it is not conducive to the public good that person should continue to be a citizen of India”.

At the same time, in a detailed report prepared by retired magistrate in July 2017 for the Ministry of Home, it was specifically mentioned that Ramesh “has no criminal background or no criminal case has been filed against him. He has not been reportedly involved in any activity of terrorism, espionage, serious organized crime, or war crime.” Moreover, using an old German passport did not mean Ramesh was a German citizen.

However, despite this, the Ministry of Home had once again cancelled the citizenship of Ramesh on November 20, 2019 without considering and exploring the Section 10.3. The present case dealt with the stay order obtained by Ramesh against this order.