Jammu and Kashmir HC upholds deportation of Pakistani couple living in Srinagar since 1988
Justice Sindhu Sharma on May 9 dismissed a petition filed by the couple in 1990, saying that they had voluntarily acquired Pakistani citizenship. She noted that as per the Citizenship Act, an Indian national who voluntarily acquires the citizenship of another country ceases to be an Indian citizen.
The petition was filed by Mohammad Khalil Qazi and his wife Arifa Qazi. Khalil was born in Srinagar in 1945 and Arifa in 1962. However, after the partition of the country, Khalil, who was a four-year-old child, was stranded along with his parents in Pakistan due to the 1948 India-Pakistan war, and the family acquired Pakistani citizenship.
The couple told the court that they got married in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in 1986. Arifa said in her petition that after the marriage, she faced cruel treatment from her in-laws, although her husband remained sympathetic to her.
The couple returned to Srinagar on Pakistani passports in July 1988 along with their minor son. They were issued residential permits by the police, which were extended three times for thirty days each.
While applying for a fourth extension, the couple also approached the authorities seeking to revive their Indian citizenship. However, in the meantime, an order for deportation was issued against them in 1989.
Khalil and Arifa challenged the deportation order in the High Court, which granted a stay on April 25, 1990, till their petition was decided. The two had been living in India since then on the basis of the stay order.
The petitioners told the High Court that they had been forced to acquire Pakistani citizenship due to circumstances beyond their control, and so, should not be deported. However, the judge rejected this contention, and said that they had acquired the citizenship of a foreign country of their own volition.
'Their passports and the residential permit issued in their favour are cogent, unequivocal evidence of the fact that the petitioners are not citizens of India and, as such, orders to deport them were valid,' Sharma said in her order.
The judge said that Khalil and Arifa had been staying in Srinagar since 1988, and had not placed anything on record to show that they were Indian citizens.
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