MHC refuses to grant direction to issue Indian citizenship to children born in Tamil refugee camps

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court (MHC) refused to direct the Union government to grant indian citizenship to all the children born at Sri Lankan Tamil refugee camps.

The first division bench comprising Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy heard the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and observed that the litigation lacks details.

The Court cannot issue sucha a blanket order to grant citizenship to the Sri Lankan refugees and rejected the PIL.

Advocate V Ravikumar filed the PIL and stated that he represented before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for considering the issue of granting Indian citizenship to every baby born in the camps for Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. Subsequently, the Union government sent a communication to the petitioner refusing to his plea.

The Union government explained that citizenship by birth can not be claimed as a matter of right, by all those who were born at the refugee camps, said the petitioner.

Further, the Union government stated that under section 3 (1) (c) of the Citizenship Act those who were born in India after the commencement of the 2003 amendment could claim citizenship by birth only if both the parents were Indian citizens or if one of the parents was an Indian citizen and the other was not an illegal migrant, he added. Aggrieved by this the petitioner approached the MHC.