Resume Indian citizenship to boy whose parents are Singapore nationals: HC

CHENNAI: Justice Anita Sumanth of Madras High Court held that even as the parent of a child had acquired the status of Singapore nationals by abandoning their Indian citizenship, their son who was merely an embryo in the womb of the mother at the time has the right to resume his Indian citizenship.

The judge passed the direction on hearing a petition filed by Pranav Srinivasan. The petitioner prayed for a direction to quash an impugned order of the Indian Consulate denying the resumption of Indian citizenship to him on the ground that his father and mother are non-Indians.

“A foetus or embryo, particularly one who was seven and half months on the critical date, that is 19.12.1998, certainly has acquired the status of a child. With this status, he acquires citizenship of his parents, i.e, Indian Citizenship and one that they renounced on the aforesaid date. Thus the protection/entitlement available under Section 8 (2) of Indian Citizenship Act, 1955 for resumption of citizenship cannot be denied to him, ” Justice Anita Sumanth held.

According to the petitioner, his parents were Indian nationals and they acquired Singapore citizenship in 1998. While they got Singapore citizenship, he was just seven and a half-month-old embryo in his mother’s womb. Therefore, he got Singapore citizenship by birth. When he turned major in 2017, he submitted a declaration under Section 8 of the Act to resume his Indian citizenship and the same was rejected by the Indian Government in 2019.

However, the judge quashed the order directing the respondents to provide citizenship documents to the petitioner within four weeks on the ground that a seven and half-month-old foetus should be considered as a child, an Indian citizen.