The Administrative Court has annulled the revocation of citizenship granted to Indian businessman Anubhav Aggarwal under the now-defunct golden passport scheme, finding that the process was flawed and that authorities failed to properly examine whether stripping him of his passport would leave him stateless.
Judge Ariadne Zervou ruled that Aggarwal had valid grounds to complain of insufficient investigation, lack of reasoning, error, and violation of the principle of proportionality. Aggarwal was represented by lawyer Simos Angelides of Andreas S. Angelides LLC.
The ruling means the administrative act revoking his Cypriot citizenship is considered void.
What the court found
Judge Zervou identified several serious flaws in the revocation process.
The Investigative Committee that originally examined Aggarwal’s case never recommended revoking his citizenship — only that the possibility of revocation be examined. The Council of Ministers nonetheless proceeded to revoke it without conducting any additional investigation, confining itself to the opinion of the Independent Committee on Citizenship Revocation.
The court found that Aggarwal’s right to appear before the Independent Committee was granted only in a formal sense. The committee failed to examine and evaluate the detailed submissions made in a multi-page letter from his lawyers, particularly regarding his actual involvement in the matters alleged against him and the evidence said to have been concealed during his naturalisation application.
The committee’s conclusions that Aggarwal had concealed being pursued by Indian police and his involvement in criminal proceedings at the time of his naturalisation application appeared to be mistaken, the judge found. Based on the detailed submissions in his lawyers’ letter, no case against him had been filed before a criminal court at the material time — a fact that was not properly investigated, despite being the sole ground for such a drastic measure as citizenship revocation.
The most serious flaw identified by the court was that the question of statelessness was never examined, evaluated, or even considered at any level before the revocation decision was taken. Aggarwal lost his Indian citizenship when he acquired a Cypriot passport, under Indian law. Revoking his Cypriot citizenship would therefore render him stateless — a matter he had raised explicitly and in detail in his lawyers’ letter of December 22, 2021, with extensive references to international treaties, guidelines, and Court of Justice of the EU case law.
The Administrative Court stressed that it is limited to reviewing the legality of the contested act and does not conduct a primary assessment of the facts. It is therefore for the authorities to examine and rule on Aggarwal’s claims, including the alleged violation of the principle of proportionality arising from the statelessness that revocation would produce, in light of all the circumstances of the case and Cyprus’s obligations under international and European law.
Background
The Nikolatos committee’s report had noted of Aggarwal that he “failed to disclose his connection to the company ARK Imports Private Limited and the fact that he was being investigated by Indian authorities in connection with the NSEL scam involving a spot exchanges scandal, and evaded arrest. The investor therefore appears to have submitted false and/or misleading information about his activities.”
Cyprus’s golden passport scheme ran for 13 years, granting citizenship to 6,779 people between 2007 and 2020, more than half of them family members of investors. The programme was scrapped in November 2020 after an Al Jazeera undercover investigation exposed how senior politicians, including then-Parliament President Demetris Syllouris and MP Christakis Giovani, were willing to help a fictitious convicted money launderer obtain a Cypriot passport. Both resigned within days of the broadcast.
The government commissioned an independent investigation chaired by former Supreme Court judge Myron Nikolatos. His 780-page report, delivered in June 2021, found that 53% of the citizenships granted under the scheme had been unlawfully issued. The report triggered a process of reviewing and revoking passports, and since 2021 the Cabinet has approved the revocation of 306 passports, covering 88 investors and 218 family members.
Criminal proceedings arising from the scandal are continuing. Former Transport Minister Marios Demetriades, seven other individuals, and two companies face 59 charges including corruption, bribery, conspiracy to defraud, and money laundering. All have pleaded not guilty.
Read more: