News Analysis India

Tag: OCI Card

  • HC questions Centre’s decision denying visa to OCI card holder as mother visited Pakistan

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court Monday asked the Centre as to how it can stop a person from coming to India merely because his mother used to visit Pakistan.

    The query was posed to the central government by Justice Rekha Palli during the hearing of a plea by three US citizens, who are also Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holders, challenging denial of visa to them to visit their family here.

    “How can you stop a person from coming to India just because his mother used to visit Pakistan,” the court said and issued notice to the ministries of external affairs and home affairs and the Consulate General of India in New York, USA, seeking their stand on the plea by June 9.

    The petitioner claimed that he, his wife and two daughters had applied for renewal of their OCI cards, and in January 2021, his wife’s card was renewed.

    However, his and his daughters’ OCI cards were not renewed for the reason that his mother lived in Pakistan during her childhood and visited that country even after marriage when she had become an Indian citizen, said the petition, filed through advocate Abha Roy.

    Roy said that according to a circular issued by the central government, OCI need not be renewed for these three card holders.

    According to the central government circular anyone who gets an OCI card after turning 20 years of age need not get it renewed till the age of 50 years after which he/she has to renew it once.

    However, if the card is obtained after 50 years of age, then no renewal is ever required, the lawyer told the court.

    She told the court that the central government failed to appreciate that the petitioner got the OCI card after he turned 50 years old and his two daughters got the card after they turned 20 years and therefore, no renewal was required.

    Despite that he was not being allowed to travel to India, Roy told the court and added that this amounted to non-application of mind by the government in interpreting its own circular.

    The petitioners want to travel urgently to India as the petitioner’s mother is in very poor health, the plea said.

  • Why was UK citizen having OCI card deported, Delhi High Court asks Centre

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has asked the Centre why a UK citizen, who holds an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card, was deported when he arrived in India in March to visit his family here.

    The counsel appearing for the central government told the court that the UK citizen was deported as he was blacklisted for being involved in the Tablighi Jamaat held in Delhi in March last year.

    Justice Prathiba M Singh said the Tablighi was long over and the petitioner, who has been blacklisted, did have a valid OCI card.

    The court issued notice to the Centre and directed it to file an affidavit indicating the reasons for deporting the petitioner when he landed in Mumbai on March 5, 2021.

    According to the petitioner, his wife and parents live in India and he had travelled here in March to visit them.

  • Government simplifies norm for reissuing OCI card

    By Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholders will now have to get their document re-issued only once at the age of 20 instead of multiple times, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said on Thursday.

    According to the MHA order, a person who has got registration as OCI cardholder prior to attaining the age of 20 “will have to get the card re-issued only once when a new passport is issued after his or her completing 20 years of age, so as to capture his or her facial features on attaining adulthood”. 

    If a person has obtained registration as OCI cardholder after attaining the age of 20 years, there will be no requirement of re-issue of OCI card, it added. Currently, the OCI card is re-issued each time a new passport is issued up to the age of 20 years of an applicant and once after completing 50 years of age, the MHA said.

    “The decision has been taken on the directions of Union Home Minister Amit Shah as part of the Modi government’s desire to simplify the process and it is expected to significantly ease the process for re-issue of OCI cards,” it said.

    So far about 37.72 lakh OCI cards have been issued by the government, the MHA said. The OCI card is a life-long visa for entry into and stay in India with a number of other major benefits which are not available to other foreigners.

  • Foreigners married to Indians cannot enjoy OCI status after divorce, Centre tells HC

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Foreigners registered as OCI cardholders because of their marriage to Indian nationals cannot continue to enjoy that status after their divorce, the Centre has told the Delhi High Court.

    The submission has been made by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) while defending the decision of the Indian Embassy in Brussels, Belgium asking a Belgian woman to surrender her OCI card after the dissolution of her marriage with an Indian national.

    The woman has challenged in the high court a provision of the Citizenship Act – section 7D(f) – under which a foreign spouse of an Indian national would lose Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) status on divorce.

    Defending the provision, the MHA in an affidavit has said that the section under challenge makes a clear classification based on the intelligible differentia as it applies to foreigners who were registered as OCI cardholders on the strength of their spouse being a citizen of India or an OCI cardholder, and whose marriage has been subsequently dissolved.

    “The provision has the object of cancellation of registration as an OCI cardholder of such foreigners as they are no more eligible under the Citizenship Act, 1955,” the MHA has said in its affidavit filed through central government standing counsel Ajay Digpaul.

    The ministry has said that the woman was issued a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) card by the Embassy of India, Brussels, Belgium on August 21, 2006 on the basis of her marriage with an Indian national.

    She had legally divorced her husband in October 2011, and subsequently the PIO card issued to her on the strength of the marriage should have been cancelled, but it was not done at that time, the ministry has said.

    It has further said that an OCI card was inadvertently issued to her in 2017 even though she was not married to an Indian citizen or an OCI card holder at that time.

    The ministry has also claimed that the woman’s OCI status has not been cancelled yet and she was only requested to surrender the card.

    It has said that a reasonable opportunity shall be given to her to explain her stand before taking any action to cancel her registration as OCI cardholder.

    The ministry has said that foreigners like the petitioners may apply for a visa under the prevailing laws and rules to legally stay in India.

    The woman has contended that asking her to surrender her OCI card has no basis in law and “also violates the twin doctrines of legitimate expectation and promissory estoppel for the simple reason that she was already divorced when she received her OCI card on February 15, 2017.

    She has said in her petition that she received the OCI card when the Indian government merged the Person of Indian Origin (POI) and OCI schemes.

    “Hence, the concerned provisions of the Citizenship Act by way of which a foreign national married to an Indian citizen loses her right to hold an OCI card in case of divorce have no application to her whatsoever,” she has claimed in her plea.

    She had received her POI card in 2006 and it was valid till August 2021, the petition has said and added that she had divorced her husband in 2011 which was communicated to the Indian embassy in Belgium in 2016.

    She has also said that she has a daughter, who holds an OCI card, with her ex-husband and since during the prevailing pandemic tourist travel to India is not possible, their only hope of coming here to meet relatives was the OCI card.

    “There is also the very real chance that if the daughter of the petitioner travels to India and is stranded because of some sudden travel restrictions that might be imposed, the petitioner might end up getting separated from her on a medium-term basis,” the petition has said.