the goan I network
MARGAO
These and other questions will be finally answered on June 9 as the High Court of Bombay at Goa will decide the fate of the Benaulim MLA after months of arguments on the citizenship tangle. The Benaulim MLA had knocked the doors of the High Court after he challenged the order of the Competent Authority in the Union Home Ministry which had ruled on November 20, 2013, that Caitu Silva has ceased to be a citizen of India from the date he registered his birth with the Central Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Lisbon as Portuguese national with effect from July 21, 2010.
In the order, the Competent Authority had stated that section 9(1) of the Citizenship Act, 1955, stated that any citizen of India, who by naturalization, registration or otherwise voluntarily acquires or has at any time between the 26th January, 1950 and the commencement of the Act in 1955, voluntarily acquired the citizenship of another country, shall upon such acquisition or as the case may be, cease to be a citizen of India.
Commenting on the case, the Benaulim MLA maintained that neither had he registered his birth in Lisbon-Portugal nor had in his possession Portuguese passport and hence there’s no question of acquiring Portuguese citizenship.
The Competent Authority had passed the order on Caitu’s citizenship after a resident of Navangully-Varca, John Fernandes, a close family friend of the Benaulim MLA’s political rival, Churchill Alemao, filed a complaint before the Authority after obtaining records from
Portugal.
Sources in the legal circles informed that the High Court order in the Caitu case will be significant since this is perhaps the first time that the order passed by the Competent Authority has come in for a judicial scrutiny in the state. The order will also be significant since it will have a bearing on the disqualification petition filed by Valanka Alemao against the Benaulim MLA, which is also pending in the High Court.
