TRS MLA’s citizenship case: HC reserves orders

HYDERABAD:Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy of the Telangana High Court on Wednesday reserved orders in the citizenship issue of TRS MLA from Vemulawada assembly constituency Chennamaneni Ramesh. The court will decide whether Ramesh is an Indian citizen or a German citizen, as he still had a German passport and he got an Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card. After fifteen days of hearing, the judge on Wednesday said that the orders were reserved.

However, counsels Chennamaneni Ramesh, his rival Aadi Srinivas in the elections, Union government and the state government have submitted their arguments. The row over Ramesh’s citizenship has been pending since 2009, after he was elected as MLA of Vemulawada Constituency. Srinivas, who lost the elections to Ramesh continuously for four times, has been disputing the Citizenship of Ramesh at appropriate forums. He had first approached the Union government, then the High Court, Supreme Court, Union home ministry and other forums, wherethe matter was forwarded to be decided.

The present petition before the High Court was filed by Ramesh challenging the orders of Union home secretary, which declared that the Indian citizenship of Ramesh was not valid. He petitioned that the High Court had ordered the Union home ministry to decide the citizenship of Ramesh by only accordance of the section 10(3) of Indian Citizenship Act, which states that 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 the person should continue to be a citizen of India. But, his contention is that the Union ministry did not take that issue as his residence in India is not conducive to the public good.

And, it passed the order mechanically stating that Citizenship is not valid. He submitted that he had been elected as MLA for four times continuously, then how the Union ministry decides the matter. Apart from that he raised technical issues like signature on the circular was signed by the under secretary and other issues. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the matter was not heard for a long time and recently the High Court started hearing the case regularly.

Senior advocate V. Ravi Kiran Rao representing on behalf of Srinivas argued that the discretion of depriving citizenship lies with the Centre and hence it took the decision on Ramesh after believing that continuation of his citizenship was not conducive for public good.