Hyderabad: The Telangana high court on Tuesday pulled up Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) legislator from Vemulawada, Chennamaneni Ramesh on his German citizenship row, in a case that dates back to 2009.
On Tuesday, the court questioned Ramesh’s lawyer as to why he had mentioned his nationality as Germany in the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card. Counsel for the petitioner and Congress leader Adi Srinivas also told the court that Ramesh had taken OCI card in 2019, which mentions his German nationality.
“It appears the MLA has to get ready to face the elections in his constituency,” the high court said and deferred the case to August 24.
While Chennamaneni Ramesh told the court that he had already relinquished his German citizenship and submitted relevant documents to the government to that effect, counsel for the Union home ministry rejected his contention.
Earlier this year, the Union home ministry told the court that Ramesh is a German citizen and holds a passport to that country. In November 2019, the ministry of home affairs canceled the Indian citizenship of Ramesh as he failed to fulfill the stipulated norms while obtaining Indian citizenship in 2009.
This is a petition filed in 2009 by Congress leader Adi Srinivas, who had contested elections against Ramesh in Vemulawada. Srinivas contended that Ramesh had obtained Indian Citizenship by fraudulent means hiding his German citizenship.
Ramesh had gone to Germany for employment in the early 1990s and obtained German Citizenship in 1993. In 2008, he returned to India and applied for Indian citizenship which was granted to him by the MHA. He won the election from the Vemulawada assembly constituency in 2009, 2014 and 2018.