Author: Editorial
Publication: The Sentinel
Date: June 23, 2004
URL: http://www.sentinelassam.com/sentinel_en/archives/jun2304/editorial.htm
Sonia Gandhi (nèe Antonia
Maino) married Rajiv Gandhi in 1968. At that time, he was but a junior
officer in Indian Airlines and appeared to have no interest in politics.
However, after the death of his younger brother Sanjay in 1980, Rajiv had
perforce to leave his job with Indian Airlines and take up the post of
general secretary of the Congress to aid his mother, who was then president
of the party and Prime Minister of the country. And this is where Sonia's
citizenship problems began, for it was not quite proper for a would-be
prime minister to have a foreign wife. When Sonia, who had in the meantime
changed her name from her original very Anglo-Saxon 'Antonia' to the more
Indian sounding 'Sonia', adopted Indian citizenship by naturalization under
Section 5(1)(c) of the Indian Citizenship Act, on April 30, 1983, Antonia
Maino come to be known to the world as Sonia Gandhi.
It would appear that though Sonia
did become an Indian citizen in 1983, she did not renounce her Italian
citizenship in the manner required by Italian law. Recall that when some
dust was raised over her retaining Italian citizenship some time ago, her
spokesperson did not categorically say that she had renounced her Italian
citizenship; it was only said that she had returned her Italian passport
to the Italian embassy. Under Italian law, or for that matter, under Indian
law, one does not automatically renounce one's citizenship by merely returning
one's passport. Unless one signs an affidavit to the effect that one is
not a citizen, then one still remains a citizen of one's country.
Article 11 of the Italian Citizenship
Law states that "the citizen who possesses, acquires or regains a foreign
citizenship shall keep the Italian one. Nevertheless he may renounce the
Italian citizenship if he resides or settles down abroad." Article 12 goes
on to say that "an Italian citizen, in case he acquires or regains or chooses
foreign citizenship, must communicate it by statement to the registrar
of the place of residence or, if he resides abroad, to the entitled consular
authority, within three months from the acquisition, recovering or option,
or from the achievement of full age, if it is subsequent."
Thus, it is thus evident that Sonia
Gandhi continues to be a citizen of Italy, unless she had signed a statement
or affidavit to the explicit effect that she had renounced her Italian
citizenship and had deposited this statement or affidavit to the entitled
consular authority, namely, to the Italian Embassy in New Delhi, within
three months of her acquiring Indian citizenship on the 30th April, 1983.
She has never stated that she has complied with Articles 11 and 12 of the
Italian Citizenship Act.
According to a news item that appeared
in a section of the press in 1999, the then Italian Consul-General in Calcutta,
Dr Giorgio Guglielmino confirmed that Italian citizenship laws allow double
citizenship to Italians who have migrated and acquired citizenship rights
of other countries. More: Dr Chanchal Chatterjee of California had made
a statement to the press in April 1999 that "the Italian embassy in the
US has informed us that any Italian citizen upon obtaining the naturalized
citizenship of a foreign country such as India continues to retain their
Italian citizenship. Italy does not require them to surrender the Italian
passports. Thus, even if Sonia (nèe Maino) Gandhi acquired Indian
citizenship, she automatically retains her original Italian citizenship,
and even if Ms Gandhi has surrendered her passport to the Indian authorities,
Italy can re-issue a passport if she produces a notarized photocopy of
her old passport or by considering the surrendered passport as a lost one.
Reading the provisions of the Italian Citizenship Act, it would appear
that the contentions made by Dr Chatterjee are substantially correct. Sonia
Gandhi has neither refuted Dr Chatterjee's statement nor the statement
made by the then Italian consul- general in Kolkata that the mere return
of her Italian passport was not renunciation of Italian citizenship.
Sonia Gandhi's adherents have never
tired of stating that the Supreme Court of India has unequivocally settled
the question of her citizenship by declaring that she is an Indian citizen.
The transcripts of the Supreme Court's judgement (AIR 2001 Supreme Court
3689 "Hari Shanker Jain v. Sonia Gandhi", coram: Dr. A. S. Anand, C.J.I.,
R. C. Lahoti, and Doraiswamy Raju, JJ.) make interesting reading. Their
Lordships made it amply clear that the question of citizenship could be
raised in an election petition, and that the validity of certificate of
citizenship issued under Section 5(1)(c) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 could
be gone into during trial of an election petition, provided the challenge
is based on a factual matrix given in the petition and not on merely bald
or vague allegations. The Court said that Italian law was a foreign law
so far as the courts in India were concerned, and therefore, could be taken
cognizance of only as facts of evidence. During the course of hearing their
Lordships asked the two appellants if they could show any book, authority
or publication based whereon the Court could form an opinion, even prima-facie,
in support of the averments relating to Italian law made in the election
petitions. The two appellants could not show the Court anything to support
their averments, and that was the reason why their appeals were dismissed.
The Court, in disposing the case, also said that a certificate obtained
under Clause 5(C) of the Indian Citizenship Act remained valid until and
unless it was proved that it had been obtained by means of fraud, false
representation or concealment of any material fact. Nowhere in the judgement
has the Supreme Court said that the case of the appellants was dismissed
on the grounds that Sonia Gandhi is a citizen of India.
Thus, it would seem that she continues
to be simultaneously a citizen of India and Italy as Italian law does not
require her to surrender her Italian citizenship or passport. Legally speaking,
she can also become the Prime Minister of Italy!
Only Sonia Gandhi and her inner
circle know the truth - whether she indeed renounced her Italian citizenship
in 1983 as prescribed by Italian law. It now remains for Ms Gandhi to lift
the veil covering the issue by clarifying by what instrument of Italian
law she renounced her Italian citizenship. She owes this much to her adopted
country, the nation she professes to love.
Lady, come clean.