Foreigners lose OCI tag when divorced from Indians, MHA tells HC

NEW DELHI: The Centre has told the Delhi HC that foreigners registered

as OCI (overseas citizens of India) cardholders because of their marriage

to Indian nationals cease to enjoy that status after their divorce.

Defending one such decision, the MHA informed the HC that the move of

the Indian embassy in Brussels, Belgium, asking a Belgian woman to

surrender her OCI card after the dissolution of her marriage with an Indian

national was taken due to such a policy.

The woman has challenged in the HC the provision of the Citizenship Act

— Section 7D(f) — under which a foreign spouse of an Indian national

would lose OCI status on divorce. MHA said the Section under challenge

makes a clear classification as it applies to foreigners who were registered as OCI cardholders on the strength of their spouse

being a citizen of India or an OCI cardholder.

MHA said the woman was issued a Person of Indian Origin card by the embassy of India, Brussels, on August 21, 2006 on the

basis of her marriage with an Indian national. She legally divorced her husband in October 2011, and the PIO card issued to her

on the strength of the marriage should have been cancelled, but it was not done at that time

An OCI card was inadvertently issued to her in 2017 even though she was not married to an Indian citizen or an OCI cardholder

at that time, and now she has been requested to surrender the same.