New Rule for Surrender of Indian Passport on Becoming US Citizen
"The most recent notice posted on the website of Consul Generals of India, San Francisco and New York stipulates that Persons of Indian Origin in the United States of America who have acquired U.S citizenship, are required to surrender their Indian Passports to the nearest Indian Consulate within 90 days of their naturalization. The surrender certificate is free if the Indian passport expired before January 1, 2005. If the Indian Passport expired after January 1, 2005 and was not surrendered within three years of obtaining US citizenship, service fee of $175 will be charged provided the Indian passport was not used for travel in which case penalty would also apply. The Government of India requires completion of a form and payment of fee and penalty, if applicable, for obtaining the surrender certificate. A US citizen of Indian origin applying for an Indian visa, OCI/PIO cards or wanting other consular services may not be able to get any such service without complying with the new rules.
Per Section 8 of the Citizenship Act 1955, “any citizen of India of full age and capacity, who is also a citizen or national of another country, makes in the prescribed manner a declaration renouncing his Indian citizenship, the declaration shall be registered by the prescribed authority; and, upon such registration, that person shall cease to be a citizen of India.” However, Section 9 of the same Act states that, “Any citizen of India who by naturalization, registration or otherwise voluntarily acquires, or has at any time between the 26th January, 1950 and the commencement of this Act voluntarily acquired, the citizenship of another country shall, upon such acquisition or, as the case may be, such commencement, cease to be a citizen of India.”
The provisions for making a declaration of renunciation are separate and distinct from the provisions of termination of citizenship. While renunciation of citizenship is covered in Section 8 of the Citizenship Act 1955 and has to be applied on a prescribed form, automatic termination of citizenship is covered under Section 9 and requires no formal application to the Indian government. Indians in the USA who have acquired American citizenship are covered under section 9 and not under Section 8. But the new rules posted on the consular website require that the “Indian passport must be surrendered within 90 days of US naturalization” and ‘Surrender Certificate’ should be obtained from the nearest Consul General of India. This rule will be enforced by refusal to grant consular services, such as visa to India, grant of OCI/PIO card, etc.
There are thousands of people who have obtained US citizenship for the last over sixty years and they have been travelling to India on American passport with Indian visa granted by the same consulates whose websites have new rules which are applicable retroactively. If the law did exist in the past, Indian consulates in the U.S should have asked for the surrender of Indian passport before granting Indian visa to U.S citizens of Indian origin. Requiring Americans of Indian Origin to surrender their Indian passport after the lapse of many years of their naturalization, would cause undue hardship and delay in getting consular services. In case an applicant has lost, damaged or surrendered his Indian passport to a foreign Government, he/she is required to furnish certified copies of following documents, as per notice on Indian Consulate website:
1. Details of last held Indian passport (Passport No., Date of Issue & Place of issue). The onus of providing details rest on the applicant.
2. Official documents submitted to US authority at the time of obtaining US citizenship/naturalization & I -130.
3. Notarized letter explaining reasons for loss.
4. Police report.
A large majority of the new citizens had no use for their old Indian passport and may have lost, misplaced or never kept in their possession after naturalization. The production of items 1 and 2 above, in particular, will not be easy and could take months to obtain from the U.S government. The Government of India should reconsider the retroactive enforcement of the new rules as thousands of people who have acquired citizenship of the United States, could suffer undue and unnecessary hardship for no fault of their own.
Is it legal for the GoI and Consulate to force us to sign the renunciation?
The reason I am saying is that I voluntarily acquired US Citizenship, and as per India law, the law has renounced me (i.e.) I lost my Indian Citizenship implicitly.
However asking me to sign this form makes me to explicitly renounce.
The reason the implicit/explicit makes a big difference is that, if future Indian law changes (nobody can rule it out), that says that "unless you explicitly renounce Indian citizenship, you do not lose your Indian citizenship." (i.e.) getting another countries citizenship does not affect IC (much like US or Canadian law).
Anybody with me?
