30 Apr 2024  |   06:45am IST

Mickky challenges Sequeira’s citizenship status in High Court

Alleges that Environment Minister is a foreign national and cannot hold any public office; prays that the respondent be asked to surrender his Indian passport

Team Herald

PANJIM: Former Minister Francisco Xavier ‘Mickky’ Pacheco on Monday filed a writ petition before the High Court of Bombay at Goa, seeking removal of Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira from the Cabinet over his foreign nationality.

Pacheco in his petition has alleged that Sequeira is a foreign national and that he cannot hold any public office in the country and that he be restrained from functioning as a Cabinet Minister. The petitioner has also prayed that the respondent be asked to surrender his Indian passport.

However, the division bench told the petitioner that this petition can come up before the normal board and further opined that the petitioner can file disqualification petition against the respondent, on the given grounds.

The State government, Goa Assembly Speaker, Regional Passport Officer Goa and Sequeira have been named as respondents. Adv Hrudaynath Shirodkar appeared for Mickky.

The matter is now likely to come up for hearing after summer vacation.

Soon after Sequeira was sworn-in as a Minister in November last year, Mickky had challenged the citizenship status of Sequeira, and alleged that his political opponent had registered his birth in Portugal in 2001 and that he possessed a Portuguese passport.

In response, Sequeira had vehemently denied Mickky’s claims, and had challenged him to prove that he indeed holds a Portuguese passport.