Delhi court allows passport plea by Rahul Gandhi, grants NOC for 3 years

On Friday, a Delhi court partly allowed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's passport plea and granted a no-objection certificate (NOC) for 3 years.

"I'm partly allowing your application. Not for 10 years but 3 years," Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vaibhav Mehta told Gandhi's lawyer.

Previously, Rahul Gandhi requested an NOC to issue an "ordinary passport" after he surrendered his diplomatic passport after being disqualified as an MP. Gandhi was disqualified as an MP after being convicted of criminal defamation on March 23 for his remark, "All thieves have Modi surname," which he had made at an election rally in Karnataka's Kolar in 2019.

Gandhi is also an accused in the National Herald case in which BJP leader Subramanian Swamy is the complainant and along with the lawyer, he also opposed the passport plea by Gandhi.

Today morning, Mehta had reserved the order after hearing the arguments, during which Swamy opposed the application, saying it was "devoid of any merit" and that the passport should be issued only for one year and renewed every year.

“It is a special case. The passport should not be issued for ten years. It seems wrong,” he told the court.

Swamy also contended that Gandhi's citizenship was under question since "he had British citizenship".

The request was opposed by Gandhi's advocate Tarannum Cheema, who claimed that the higher courts had already dismissed two petitions asking for criminal proceedings on citizenship issues.

She urged the court to allow the passport to be issued for ten years since such relief has been granted by the higher courts in cases with much graver offences, and in the present case, not even charges are framed.

The National Herald case is based on a private criminal complaint against Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others, accusing them of cheating, conspiracy and criminal breach of trust.