Citizenship row: HC tells Chennamaneni to place all records by tomorrow

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday directed former Vemulawada legislator Chennamaneni Ramesh, dealing with his citizenship row, to place all records about when he had surrendered the German passport and when he had obtained the Indian passport.

The Court also directed the counsel for the Union government to get instructions about the passport details and his alleged application seeking Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card.

Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy was dealing with a petition filed by Ramesh, challenging the 2019 orders of the Union home ministry that ceased his Indian citizenship.

On Wednesday, senior advocate V. Ravikiran Rao, representing Adi Srinivas, the present MLA of Vemulawada who had lost to Ramesh in the 2018 elections, raised the citizenship issue, submitted that at the time of filing nominations for the 2018 elections, Ramesh had the German passport and a year later he had applied for the OCI card. Stating that Ramesh had suppressed these facts before the court, he had sought relief against the orders ceasing his citizenship.

Senior counsel Y. Rama Rao submitted that the petitioner had renounced his German citizenship much earlier and he was an Indian citizen during the 2018 elections.

The court questioned counsel for Ramesh on how the petitioner had sought relief from the court if he suppressed facts regarding the surrender of his Garman passport. He also submitted that Ramesh would be in a critical situation if the court upholds the Centre’s decision, because he had already renounced German citizenship.

However, to get clarification on the said issues, the court directed both Ramesh as well as the Union government to place records to prove their contentions by Friday.