The Delhi High Court recently held that a person’s overseas citizenship cannot be cancelled arbitrarily without hearing the concerned person [John Robert Roughton III v Union of India & Ors]. .Justice Sachin Datta said that Section 7D of the Citizenship Act, 1955 mandates no OCI card can be cancelled without providing the affected individual a reasonable opportunity of being heard.“The expression reasonable opportunity of being heard has been interpreted by the Supreme Court in a catena of cases. It is now well settled that the same subsumes an effective opportunity to meet the relevant allegations. Necessarily, the same also takes within its sweep the entitlement to being informed about the grounds for taking the proposed action,” the Court order dated March 28 said. .It also rejected the government’s argument that blacklisting under Section 3 of the Foreigners Act has an overriding effect on all kinds of visas, including an OCI card, which is also a lifelong visa granted to eligible foreign nationals.The government had argued that there is no liability on them to even tell a person the reason for such blacklisting, let alone providing them the opportunity of being heard.Justice Datta said these arguments are contrary to High Court earlier decision in Khalid Jahangir Qazi through his power of Attorney Holder Ms. Farida Siddiqi v. Union of India through Secretary and Others and connected matter. “This Court reaffirmed (in Khalid Jahangir) that while Section 3 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, does not expressly provide for a hearing, the procedural safeguards under Section 7-D of the Citizenship Act must be harmoniously read into cases involving OCI cardholders, particularly when blacklisting them effectively negates their rights under the Citizenship Act. The Court cautioned against using the Foreigners Act to bypass the procedural safeguards embedded in the OCI framework,” Justice Datta noted..The Court rendered these findings while dealing with a plea filed by one John Robert Roughton III against the government’s decision to cancel his OCI card and deport him from Delhi’s international airport allegedly because he was involved in missionary activities. Roughton is a US citizen who is married to an Indian woman. After his deportation, his family and he sent representations to government officials but it did not elicit any response. Therefore, he approached the High Court. .After considering the case, the Court ordered the government to serve a show cause to Roughton regarding his blacklisting and then pass a speaking order after considering his response and giving him an opportunity of hearing. .Advocates Dr Amit George, Dhiraj Abraham Philip, Febin Mathew Varghese, Ibansara Syiemlieh, Achalika Ahuja and Naveen Richard appeared for the petitioner. Union of India was represented through Central Government Standing Counsel Nidhi Raman and advocates Zubin Singh and Arnav Mittal. .Recently, the High Court had set aside the Central government's decision to cancel the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card of Swedish based academic, Professor Ashok Swain..[Read Judgment]
