The Delhi High Court has dismissed a petition by a woman challenging cancellation of her Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) registration by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in 2008, holding that there was no legal infirmity in the Ministry's order.
The Ministry had in 2007 granted the registration to Syeda Afshan Rahman on an application filed by her under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
While cancelling the registration subsequently the Ministry had said that Ms. Rahman had suppressed a crucial fact while applying for the registration: that she had been a citizen of Pakistan earlier.
According to the petitioner, she was born in Patna in 1968.
He father was posted at Chittagong in East Pakistan as a chemical engineer. He died during the 1971 Indo-Pak war.
The family, mother of the petitioner and her brother, had returned to India in 1978 on a Pakistani passport, the petitioner said, asserting that she had never opted for or obtained a Pakistani citizenship as hers and the name of her brother were endorsed on the passport as minors.
Rejecting her claim, the Ministry stated: “….although the petitioner was a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) having been born in India, she could not be granted Overseas Citizen of India registration since one of the conditions was that a PIO should never have been a citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh.
Upholding the Ministry's order, Justice S. Muralidhar said: “There is no infirmity in the order passed by the Ministry cancelling OCI registration of the petitioner.”
