According to the Indian act & law if any person possesses the passport of another country he or she automatically loses the Indian citizenship but in Goa the scenario is different. According to the available information those Goans who had born in Portugal with their registration of birth is done there before the liberation of Goa do not lose their Indian citizenship until they do not procure the passport from Portugal although they do posses the dual citizenship by birth.
This situation is very complicated here, according the available sources as many as 40 thousand Goans have believed to have registered their births in Portugal and have dual citizenship, although is a controversial issue and is still under the consideration by the centre. The figure includes the politicians, police personnel, bureaucrats and common man. As per the news published by the TNN the union ministry of law and justice has suggested the ministry of home affairs (MHA) to amend the country’s citizenship act and grant the one time AMNESTY to those Goans who have registered their births in Portugal.
According to the news published in the national daily “The state government has asked the Union government to expedite the process to solve the long-pending issues of Goans who are deprived from getting Indian passports as they were born abroad before and immediately after the liberation of Goa. There are around 50 such cases pending before the home department”. R K Srivastava, Chief Secretary, in his letter to B K Prasad who is additional secretary (foreigners) at Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that those who are born abroad before and after the liberation of Goa, do not posses any travel documents on which they travelled to India.
The home department has accepted the fact that Goan who has born abroad after the liberation of Goa are facing the problem of obtaining the Indian passport as they don’t have passport, Visa or any other travel documents to show how they have entered the Indian territory. The chief secretary also revealed that these Goans do posses various documents issued by the Indian government such as Voting Card, Ration Card, Aadhar Card and PAN card etc. “These persons have done their education in Goa / India and were/are employed in government sector, banks, schools, etc. The passport officer is insisting for an Indian citizenship certificate from such persons as they were born abroad,” Srivastava added.
The home department official have also revealed that they have had several meetings with MHA officials to discuss the possibility of giving the relief to those Goans who are born abroad after the liberation of Goa but till now no solution have been found for this situation. According to them the Home Department has suggested three options to MHA to solve this problem:-
- Amendment of the Goa, Daman and Diu (citizenship) order, 1962, so as to enable such persons of Goan origin to acquire Indian citizenship by dispensing with the requirement of producing the travel documents.
- The second option was that the ministry may explore the possibility of accepting the manual applications for citizenship by relaxing the requirement of online submission and most importantly to accept the date of arrival in India, based on the self declaration signed by such applicants.
- The last option was, as evidence, a domicile certificate from the district magistrate and countersigned by the chief secretary of Goa that may be provided to the MHA.
The moment formalities in accordance to any of the above recourse have been taken into the consideration by the government of India that will solve the problem of Indian citizenship of those 50 Goans, which are waiting for their turn to acquire the Indian Passport. Please do leave your comments and suggestions on this issue.
Source: TNN
