the goan I network
PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and other Bharatiya Janata Party leaders may be in denial but legal eagles and other politicians are convinced the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill passed by Parliament will be a dead end for overseas Goans eyeing a return to their homeland.
“There will be no repurcussions of the bill for Goans,” Sawant said while speaking to The Goan on the sidelines of the lecture-series event to commemorate the late Manohar Parrikar’s first birth anniversary post his death earlier this year.
NRI Commissioner Narendra Sawaikar also tweeted on Thursday that the law will have no impact on Goans holding Indian passports.
“How and why will #CABill divide India? It will not affect the rights of Goan passport holders before or after the passage of the #CABill,” Sawaikar who served a term as South Goa MP, tweeted on Thursday.
But legal views, though diverse, veer to the position that the new law, which confers citizenship on religious lines citing persecution by foreign States, could pose problems for the many thousands of Goans holding Portuguese passports and who want to reclaim citizenship to retire in their homeland.
Former union law minister Ramakant Khalap is one such who says Goans holding Portuguese passports and want to return home will be “stranded” unless restrictions to vote or hold and buy agricultural land on Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) are removed.
“They will be stranded. They will not qualify in the ‘religiously persecuted’ categories so how would they reclaim their citizenship?” he asked.
Khalap who was Union law minister under two prime ministers - HD Deve Gowda and the late IK Gujral - also said that the amended law will have to pass the test of judicial scrutiny in the Supreme Court.
“Will it pass scrutiny of treating citizens with equality of law and does it discriminate on religious basis are questions that the new law will have to scrutinized against by the judiciary,” Khalap said.
The veteran lawyer-politician also said the methodology and criteria to ascertain religious persecution in the country of residence will be tricky.
“Will it be a claim by the applicant or will the country of residence certify persecution unleashed by itself?” he asked.
Thousands of Goans have opted for Portuguese nationality and travelled to European Union countries, particularly the United Kingdom in search of work.
One estimate pegs as many as 30,000 Portuguese passport holding Goans to be living and working in the UK.
Many of them would be left struggling in their quest for reverse migration by reclaiming their Indian citizenship with the Citizenship Law itself amended to link the privilege to religious persecution in their country of residence.
