The Parliamentary Ethics Committee has issued a notice to Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, asking him to explain whether he had once declared himself a British citizen on the legal papers of a company in the United Kingdom. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan reportedly referred Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy’s “complaint of ethical misconduct” to the 11-member panel. Lawmaker Mahesh Giri forwarded the complaint on Swamy’s behalf, NDTV reported.

Congress was mired in the British citizenship controversy in November last year after Swamy said he had accessed documents in which Gandhi had called himself “British” on the annual returns of UK-based Backops Limited in 2005 and 2006. The party had released another document of the same company, in which Gandhi had declared himself Indian, and claimed that the discrepancy between the two records was a “typing error”. Congress leaders have accused the Lok Sabha speaker of side-stepping “the process of natural justice” by not seeking Gandhi’s version of the matter first.

The Ethics Committee, which is headed by BJP veteran LK Advani, has the power to expel a lawmaker. Congress claims the inquiry against Gandhi was just a formality as there was “nothing incriminating” against him. The 45-year-old party vice president himself dismissed the allegations and dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to jail him if he was proven guilty.