TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: The Supreme Court has observed in the appeal filed by MLA Caitu Silva on the citizenship issue that the single judge of the High Court was not justified in deciding the writ petition at the back of the Benaulim MLA whose citizenship had been questioned by John Fernandes.
While setting aside the High Court order giving eight weeks time to the Union Home Affairs to decide the complaint of John Fernandes, the three-Judge SC bench comprising of Justice G S Singhvi, Justice Sudhansu Jyoti Kukhopadhaya and Justice V Gopala Gowda had observed “though the prayer made in the writ petition filed by John Fernandes was innocuous, the consequences emanating from final adjudication of the representation made by him were extremely serious qua the appellant (Caitu) and no order could have been passed for disposal of the representation made by John without giving opportunity of hearing to the appellant, more so because the learned Single Judge had made adverse observation on the status of Caitu’s citizenship.
The SC observation assumes significance given that Justice Rajiv Shakdher of the Delhi High court, while directing the Union Home Ministry to dispose of John’s complaint within eight weeks, had observed “it appears that respondent No 2 (Caitu) obtained citizenship of Portugal on 21.7.2010. This fact evidently has been confirmed by the Ministry of External Affairs on 2.4.2012.
The matter is now remitted back to the Delhi High Court for fresh disposal of the writ petition filed by John Fernandes after giving opportunity to the parties to file their pleadings.
