New Delhi
A Delhi court on Friday granted a no-objection certificate (NOC) to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for issuance of an ‘ordinary passport’ for three years, instead of the normal 10-year period, following an objection raised by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy.
Gandhi had surrendered his diplomatic passport upon his disqualification as an MP following his conviction and award of two-year imprisonment in a defamation case by a Gujarat court.
”I’m partly allowing your application. Not for 10 years but three years,” Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Vaibhav Mehta told Gandhi’s counsel.
Gandhi is scheduled to visit Washington DC, New York and San Francisco in the US in the first week of June to attend meetings and interact with university students.
He is likely to address Indian Americans, meet lawmakers at the US Capitol, and interact with members of think tanks, Wall Street executives and university students during his stay.
Swamy—who is the complainant in the National Herald case against Rahul Gandhi and others—opposed the application, saying it was ”devoid of any merit” and insisted the passport should be issued only for one year and renewed every year thereafter.
“It is a special case. The passport should not be issued for 10 years. It seems wrong,” he said, and claimed Gandhi’s Indian citizenship was under question. He alleged Gandhi was a British citizen.
Gandhi’s advocate Tarannum Cheema contested Swamy’s claim and said two petitions asking for initiating criminal proceedings against the Congress leader on the citizenship issue have already been rejected by higher courts. In the present case even charges have not been framed, Cheema added.
The National Herald case is based on a private criminal complaint by Swamy against Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others, accusing them of cheating, conspiracy and criminal breach of trust.
Swamy has accused them of cheating and misappropriation of funds in acquiring ownership of the now-defunct daily newspaper National Herald. All of them were directors of Young Indian Ltd (YI), a company that was incorporated in 2010 and which took over the ”debt” of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL), the publisher of National Herald.
Swamy has accused Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by just paying Rs 50 lakh by which YI obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore which the AJL owed to the Congress party.
Rahul Gandhi’s sentence in the defamation case has been suspended in the defamation case over his remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname.
