A CHILD IS ENTITLED TO AN INDIAN PASSPORT EVEN IF ONE PARENT IS NOT AN INDIAN CITIZEN

Recently, the Kerala High Court declared that even when one parent of a minor born in India is not an Indian Citizen, the child is entitled to an Indian Passport.

The HC held the above while hearing a petition moved by a minor child, born in India, with an American Citizen's mother, seeking directions for issuing a passport to her without consent from her father, an Indian Citizen. The minor's parents divorced a while, and the mother was appointed as her legal guardian.

The Court held that as per Section 3 of the Citizenship Act, 1955, a minor who has acquired citizenship by birth cannot be regarded as stateless because of her mother being an American citizen. Merely because one parent is not a citizen of India, will not disentitle a child born in India and moreover, whose other parent is an Indian citizen.

Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas noted that "The right of a child to acquire nationality is guaranteed under Article 7 of the Convention. It obliges every State to implement this right and under Article 8 to protect the nationality of every child. India, as a party State to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, (by virtue of its ratification in December 1992) has an obligation that no child is left stateless". 

The Court said by virtue of several precedents, it has been provided in the form of Annexure-C of Schedule III of the Passport Rules, 1980, the passport issuing authority can issue a passport to a minor child, without the consent of both parents. In this present case, the court noted that the father has been given only visitorial rights and has no objection to allowing the child to go abroad with her mother.

In view of the same, the Court held that a child is entitled to an Indian passport even if one of the parents is not an Indian Citizen.