PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has ruled in favour of a 16-year-old minor, directing the Ministry of External Affairs and Regional Passport Officer to issue her an Indian passport while quashing the authorities’ earlier rejections on the grounds of her mother’s foreign citizenship.
The petitioner, Chrisella Valanka Kushi Raj Naidu, a minor born in Goa, had her passport renewal denied by the government, which cited her status as a “single parent minor child” under the custody of a foreign national as the reason for ineligibility.
As per the contention raised by the petitioner, she was born on 27 October 2007, in Margao to parents of Indian origin who married in 2007. However, after her father abandoned the family in 2010, her mother sought and obtained a divorce in 2019. The civil court granted the mother permanent custody of the petitioner until she reached adulthood.
The petition further stated that after her mother acquired Portuguese citizenship in 2015, the petitioner’s Indian passport, originally issued in 2014, was set to expire in December 2019. When the mother applied for its renewal, the authorities refused, claiming that the petitioner was ineligible due to her mother’s foreign nationality.
The High Court Bench of Justice M.S. Karnik and Justice Valmiki Menezes, however, disagreed with the government’s stance while observing that under the Citizenship Act, 1955, the petitioner, having been born to Indian parents, was entitled to Indian citizenship by birth. The court further clarified that the Citizenship Act does not strip the petitioner of her Indian citizenship simply because her mother acquired foreign nationality.
“There is nothing on record to indicate that the petitioner’s father does not continue to be a citizen of India. The petitioner’s father, an Indian citizen, is untraceable,” the court observed. The court also stated that the petitioner has not acquired the citizenship of any other country and remains an Indian citizen under the law.
“The petitioner’s mother has not renounced her citizenship of India...Having acquired citizenship of Portugal, by operation of law in terms of Section 9 (of the Citizenship Act), the petitioner’s mother ceases to be a citizen of India...This is not a case where it can be said that the petitioner’s Indian citizenship ceases or is terminated in terms of what is provided in Sections 8, 9, and 10 of the Citizenship Act. Merely because the petitioner’s custody is with her mother there is no ground to assume that the petitioner is no longer a citizen of India or that there is a termination of her Indian citizenship. The Citizenship Act does not provide for such a consequence,” it added.
The Bench also acknowledged that the minor has not acquired the citizenship of another country and therefore is a citizen of India in terms of Section 3 of the Citizenship Act.
In its order, the court directed the government to issue the petitioner a passport, stating, “The acquisition of a foreign nationality by the petitioner’s mother will not affect the citizenship status of the petitioner. The child cannot be left ‘stateless’.”
The court further instructed that the passport should be issued unless there are valid grounds under the Passports Act, 1967, to refuse it.
