Citizenship

• The Constitution deals with the citizenship from Articles 5 to 11 under Part II.
• Citizens are full members of the Indian State and owe allegiance to it. They enjoy all civil and political rights.
• Aliens, on the other hand, are the citizens of some other state and hence, do not enjoy all the civil and political rights.
• Friendly aliens are the subjects of those countries that have cordial relations with India.
• Enemy aliens are the subjects of that country that is at war with India. They enjoy lesser rights than the friendly aliens.

The Citizenship Act (1955):

The Citizenship Act (1955) provides for acquisition and loss of citizenship after the commencement of the Constitution and also provided for the Commonwealth Citizenship. But, this provision was repealed by the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003

Five ways of acquiring citizenship:

• By Birth
• By Descent
• By Registration
• By Naturalisation
• By Incorporation of Territory

Loss of Citizenship

The Citizenship Act (1955) prescribes three ways of losing citizenship whether acquired under the Act or prior to it under the Constitution.

• By Renunciation
• By Termination
• By Deprivation

Single citizenship

• Indian Constitution is federal and envisages a dual polity (Centre and states).
• It provides for only a single citizenship.
• There is no separate state citizenship.

Overseas citizenship of india (2000):

• Chairman - L.M. Singhvi.
• It recommended the amendment of the Citizenship Act (1955) to provide for grant of dual citizenship to the Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) belonging to certain specified countries.
• Accordingly, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003, made provision for acquisition of Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) by the PIOs of 16 specified countries other than Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2005, expanded the scope of grant of OCI for PIOs of all countries except Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2015, has modified the provisions pertaining to the OCI in the Principal Act. It has introduced a new scheme called “Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder” by merging the PIO card scheme and the OCI card scheme.

Note : The OCI is not a dual citizenships as the Indian Constitution forbids dual citizenship or dual nationality (Article 9).