Dual Citizenship
The Citizenship Amendment Bill 2003 was passed in both Houses of Parliament in December 2003 to provide dual citizenship to Overseas Indians and Persons of Indian Origin settled abroad.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill 2003 removed the four schedules present in the Citizenship Act 1955 and 16 countries Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Israel, Portugal, France, Sweden, New Zealand, Greece, Cyprus, Italy. Provision of dual citizenship was made for NRIs from Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, UK and USA.
Rights given to migrants – Prabhati will get citizenship of their own country as well as citizenship of India under which they have the following rights
- The right to equality of opportunity for public jobs guaranteed under Article 16 of the Constitution is also not conferred on the overseas Indians
- In 2006 , the voting rights were given to overseas Indians
- They will not get any constitutional post in India
- Restrictions imposed on migrants – Overseas Indians have been denied the following rights
- Persons of Indian Origin acquiring such dual citizenship shall have freedom of movement in India
- India is the second country after China, whose crores of people are settled in 110 countries of the world, Indian diaspora has made spectacular economic progress in all countries including America, the main objective of making them invest capital in India is to enrich India’s foreign exchange fund and speed up economic development
- Under this, they will have the right to live, acquire property and invest capital in India
Citizenship Amendment Ordinance 2005
The Central Government promulgated the Citizenship Amendment Ordinance 2005 on 28 June 2005, whose provisions are as follows:
- They belonged to the land that became part of August 15, 1947, their minor children whose nationality belongs to a country that allows dual citizenship are eligible for registration for Indian citizenship
- The population of any state is divided into two categories, that is, citizens and other national citizens are given all types of civil and political rights while other natives are not
- People of Indian Origin who either themselves or their parents, grandparents migrated from India after January 20, 1950 or were eligible to become Indian citizens on January 26, 1950, or
Citizenship (Amendment) Act-2015
The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee had promulgated the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2015 with immediate effect from January 6, 2015, making the following amendments in the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955.
- At present, it is mandatory for Indian citizenship to stay in India for one consecutive year, but, if the central government is satisfied then it can be relaxed under special circumstances.
- Such special circumstances may be relaxed for a specific period of 12 months after recording of written records, subject to a maximum of 30 days at varying intervals.
- OCI of Indian Citizens The conditions for registration of minor children as Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) will be liberalized.
- Children or grandchildren or great grandchildren of such citizens shall have the right to register as Overseas Citizens of India.
- The spouse of an overseas citizen registered under section 7A or spouse of an Indian citizen registered under section 7A shall have the right of registration as an overseas citizen of India and those whose marriage has been registered or solemnized for a period of two years may apply immediately under this section.
- In respect of existing PIO cardholders, the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify the date from which a decision may be taken to convert all existing PIO cardholders into OCI cardholders.
- The Indian Citizenship Act, 1955 is for land acquisition, discharge of work, distress, identification of Indian citizenship and other related issues. Under this Act, Indian citizenship is also conferred at birth, generation, registration, merger or inclusion of place under special circumstances and termination of citizenship and crisis.