Bombay HC extends stay of city resident

Mumbai: The Ministry of External Affairs failed to process the citizenship application of a 52-year-old Mumbai resident Asif Karadia, despite the Bombay high court directing them to do so. Karadia who has been asked to go to Pakistan by the Indian government approached the court on Wednesday and sought directions on what he should do next. After hearing the submissions by the state and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the court will pursue the matter after four weeks.

On Wednesday, a division bench of justices Anoop Mohta and Anuja Prabhudessai was hearing a writ petition filed by Abbas Karadia and his son Asif seeking directions to the state and central government to expedite the application for Indian citizenship of Asif who has been living in Mumbai since the past 49 years.

Asif was born in Pakistan where his mother’s family lived and his name was tagged in his mother’s passport as there was no separate passports were issued to infants. Asif came to India with his mother three years later. While his mother got an Indian citizenship, his father assumed that as Asif’s name was tagged with his mother’s in the passport, the application for change of the mother’s citizenship would include him too. The matter came to light when Asif applied for a passport but was refused on the grounds that he was a Pakistani national. The Karadia family applied for Asif’s Indian citizenship but he was refused and hence the family came to court.

Advocate Sujay Kantawala appearing for Asif told the court that neither the state nor the union government had complied with an earlier order of the court wherein the authorities were given a time limit of 16 weeks to decide the application of Asif in accordance with the law.

He further informed the court that the local CID officials had been making queries with the petitioner, which he had been co-operating with. The petitioner also filed an additional affidavit requesting directions for a time bound direction to the authorities to decide on Asif’s application for citizenship filed on October 6, 2006.    

The court took the statements on record and kept the matter for directions after four weeks.