Following an application brought by Gurpal Singh Oppal of Charles Simmons Immigration Solicitors, it was argued that a child born on or after 3 December 2004 to Indian parents, outside India, and has not been registered by the Indian authorities is deemed stateless and entitled to be registered as a British citizen.
The application for British Citizenship made on the basis that a child born in the UK to India parents, both of whom had overstayed. It was argued that a child who had not been registered with the overseas Indian authorities as an Indian was deemed stateless and therefore was entitled to become a British Citizen.
In allowing the appeal, it was said that a person is stateless if she has no nationality. The ability to acquire a nationality is irrelevant for these purposes. The difficulty faced was obtaining ‘confirmation from the Indian authorities that the birth has not been registered in accordance with Indian law and that she is not a national of India’. Although there are a number of places in the United Kingdom where registration takes place, there appears to be no central register of who is a citizen of India.
Although the Home Office still has the option of appealing the decision, this potentially opens the doors to thousands of Indian families to apply for settlement in the UK, who otherwise would have waited for an alternative period of 7 years or more with their children.
