A 67-year-old woman, who has been living in the city since 1966, has approached the Bombay high court seeking directions to the Central government to grant her Indian citizenship.
Ila Popat, who resides in Andheri, has also claimed in her petition that she has been married to an Indian national for the last 45 years and her children and grandchildren are Indian citizens.
Advocate Aditya Chitale, representing the woman, informed a division bench of justice S V Gangapurwala and justice S M Modak on Friday that Ila was born in Uganda to parents of Indian origin who had held British passports. She and her brother had travelled to India on her mother’s passport in 1966 and she had been living here since then, the plea said.
The bench was further told that Ila had in 2019 filed an online application for Indian citizenship on the advice of the regional passport authority, but had mistakenly mentioned that she had a valid visa, which was not the case. Her application was rejected.
The petition also said that under section 5(1)(c) of the Citizenship Act, she was eligible for citizenship by registration after seven years of being married to an Indian national.
Appearing for the Ministry of External Affairs, advocate Advait Sethna assured the HC that the woman could be offered citizenship if she furnished a foreign passport and that she could get it with the help of the Ugandan embassy. The bench was also told that the woman’s application for a British passport had been rejected by the British embassy for the want of proper documents.
After hearing the submissions, the HC directed the Centre to respond to the petition and posted the matter for hearing on August 22.
As per her plea, Ila had in 1977 got married to Jatin Popat. She had applied for an Indian passport in 1997, 2008, and 2012. However, it was only in 2015 that she was advised by the regional passport authority to apply for Indian citizenship.
Speaking to Hindustan Times, Jatin said they had made the first application for an Indian passport in 1997 assuming that she would get it as her parents had held a British passport. However, they were advised to apply again in 2008 and 2012 but each time the application was rejected.
“Our entire family is based in India. But we have never considered going abroad on a vacation as Ila does not have a passport,” he said.
When asked about his wife’s health condition following the rejection of her citizenship application, Jatin said, “It hurts her that while everyone in the family is an Indian citizen, she is considered a stateless citizen. Hence, whenever the issue comes up, she gets depressed. I just hope that the court helps her get Indian citizenship as soon as possible.”