The government has dug out a rarely applied clause in the Indian Citizenship Act to make way for granting Indian national status to Geeta, the hearing and speech impaired girl stuck in Pakistan since 2003.
A senior government official told The Hindu that since there were no documents on Geeta to prove that she was an Indian citizen, they would apply Section 13 of the Indian citizenship Act to facilitate her stay in India.
Section 13 of the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955, says that, “the Central government, may, in such cases as it thinks fit, certify that a person, with respect to whose citizenship of India a doubt exists, is a citizen of India; and a certificate issued under this section shall, unless it is proved that it was obtained by means of fraud, false representation or concealment of any material fact, be conclusive evidence that person was such a citizen on the date thereof, but without prejudice to any evidence that he was such a citizen at an earlier date.”
The Home Ministry will use this clause to grant “certificate of citizenship in case of doubt” to Geeta when she arrives in India on October 26.
On her part, Geeta, after her arrival, would be required to fill a detailed form that will facilitate her citizenship process. In absence of valid documents, Geeta would be treated as an “illegal migrant”, according to the Act.
A high-level meeting was convened at South Block on Friday to decide the citizenship status of Geeta.
“A lot of debate ensued on Geeta’s citizenship status and we decided that for anyone to enter India, one needs to have supporting travel documents like a passport. Since Geeta’s case is an exception and the High Commissioner in Pakistan has sent his report confirming that Geeta is an Indian citizen, we decided to provide her Indian citizenship as per Section 13,” said a senior government official.
| Geeta will be back home shortly: MEA After years of waiting to return home, Geeta, the deaf and mute girl in Pakistan, who is believed to have crossed the border by mistake after being separated from her family in 2003, is heading back to India. >Read more |
