This is a post written by RK Singh, Ex-Air Force Office who took premature retirement in 1993 and then helped in setting up 7 factories all over India. He is based at Noida and deeply into social service to help people in general who have legal issues or problems. He is a postgraduate in physics from Allahabad University and Master’s in Defence Studies, Business Administration & environmental Sciences besides a degree in law. He has published 23 research papers and a number of articles. This article is about the citizenship dilemma faced by children born abroad.
I would like to share a painful story of the son and daughter-in-law and two small children of my friend with you who asked me for advice and help in their personnel matter. It was sad and painful for me to tell them I cannot help at present at all as the entry of foreign citizens is banned in India due to coronavirus. My friend’s son, daughter in law and two children are in the USA. Both children aged 6 years and 2 years were born in America and both Indian parents were working there. Now due to changes in the rules made by the USA government, they have to leave the country within 60 days and notice already served to them. They went to the airport to board a Vande Bharat fight to India. They got tickets and were told that they could board the flight but not their children as they were not Indian citizens but American citizens. They had to go to a hotel to stay. They have only 40 or more days in America.
I asked them only one question only as the children were born after 3 Dec 2004 that did they register their children after their birth within a year at the Indian Embassy or not? Sadly their reply was no and added that they did not know. Here lies the problem. Section 4(2) of the Citizenship act 1955 states that:-
“A person born outside India on or after 3rd December 2004 shall not be a citizen of India, unless the parents declare that the minor does not hold passport of another country and his birth is registered at an Indian consulate within one year of the date of birth or with the permission of the Central Government, after the expiry of the said period.”
This means all children who are born to Indian parents in America or any other country are not Indian Citizens unless the registration procedure was followed. Probably the parents were scared that if they register then their children will lose American citizenship which is automatic since they were born in America, which is true, and they did not want that to happen. The painful outcome may be, in the worst-case scenario, that the parents will be deported after 60 days as illegal residents and the children will be transferred to a child care home or foster parents. They also said that there are many more people like them stranded. The Embassy has also regretted that they cannot help due to instructions from the Indian government banning the entry of foreign nationals in India.
I could offer them sympathy only and the only advice I could give was that to ask them to go Indian consulate and get the birth of the children registered as Indian citizen there. The birth can be registered up to 7 years at the discretion of the counsel with some fine but after seven years the case has to be forwarded to the Indian government and only after their instruction the birth of the children can be registered at the consulate as an Indian citizen. After registration of birth to Indian parents abroad at the consulate for their children, they can get the names endorsed in their passports or get an Indian passport made. After that they can book a ticket on the Vande Bharat flight back to India for all four of them
This simply means that a child born outside India holds dual citizenship, one that of the country where he was born by virtue of being born there and if his birth is registered with the Indian Consulate then he is also an Indian Citizen. When he becomes 18 years of age he has to decide as to which country citizenship he wishes to hold and renounce the other within six months as the Indian citizenship act does not permit dual citizenship for Indians. Sadly this is the part that most of us are unaware and especially the Indian parents whose children are born outside India.
There is another option wherein case the child is born outside India in whose case the process of registration was not done at the consulate or the information was not received by the Registrar General in India due to any reason as per section 4(1) then if the parents of the child return to India with a view to settle in India they may at any time within sixty days of arrival of the child in India get the child registered under the Registration of Birth and Death Act 1969 in India. But after sixty days the provision of delayed registration will apply as per section 11 of the act.
