Indian exit / stay clearance for new born British citizen

[British]

Hi,

I am bringing my wife and our recently born baby to UK from India.

I am a British citizen, my wife (married to me) is holding a spouse/marraige visa and my recently born baby is a British citizen and her British passport is currently in process (with BHC in India).

I am told that since my daughter is a British citizen (she was born in India though, recently), she will need some exit/stay clearace in India before she will be allowed to fly out of India to UK.

Does anybody know what this stay clearance visa/docuement is?

I have searched reasonably far and wide in the internet about this, but did not get any concrete information.

My wife (who is in India currently) will be visiting the Indian Passport /consular office in India on Monday to get more info, but thought if anybody already knew about this, it will be good to hear about it, espeically some practical experience.

If this clerance will take a long time, we might also consider applying for a PIO card for my daughter in India, since that can act as a entry/exit clearance as well

Any thoughts/comments, welcome.

[JAJ]

Hi,

I am bringing my wife and our recently born baby to UK from India.

I am a British citizen, my wife (married to me) is holding a spouse/marraige visa and my recently born baby is a British citizen and her British passport is currently in process (with BHC in India).

I am told that since my daughter is a British citizen (she was born in India though, recently), she will need some exit/stay clearace in India before she will be allowed to fly out of India to UK.

Does anybody know what this stay clearance visa/docuement is?

I have searched reasonably far and wide in the internet about this, but did not get any concrete information.

My wife (who is in India currently) will be visiting the Indian Passport /consular office in India on Monday to get more info, but thought if anybody already knew about this, it will be good to hear about it, espeically some practical experience.

If this clerance will take a long time, we might also consider applying for a PIO card for my daughter in India, since that can act as a entry/exit clearance as well

Any thoughts/comments, welcome.

As the child is not an Indian citizen, I doubt the British government would look kindly on the Indian government preventing the departure of a British citizen from India.

The British High Commission might be able to assist in this respect.

[Joseph]

It would appear (I'm not knowledgeable about Indian law) that your daughter is also currently an Indian citizen because she was born in India with at least one Indian parent. As such, she will be subject to Indian law in terms of her departure from India. She will either have to get an Indian passport or, possibly, the Indian authorities will issue a PIO or other document. I would imagine that in India, issuing anything other than an Indian passport (or renouncing her Indian nationality) would be very complicated. Of course, she would only need the Indian passport to leave India, because she has the British passport to enter the UK.


Under international law, the fact that she has British citizenship has no bearing when she is in the country of her other nationality. Until she formally loses her Indian nationality, India will not recognize her British citizenship and the British High Commission can offer no legal protection to her. This could change later once she comes to the UK and then returns to India. In this case, the Indian High commission in the UK could cancel her Indian citizenship and issue a visa on her British passport, which would then entitle her to British protection.

Joseph

[PASS]

British,

I thought that you settled with this issue. Back to Sq.1 with new dimension.

Joseph's IDEA is misleading, it is illegal to apply for Indian Passport when you've made an application for BC. Indian Govt, won't take this lightly esp. in India.

Since you registered your child as BC, you need to normalise her stay between her birth and obtaining BC. If British Citizen goes to India, subsequently had a child in India, the child gets visa endorosed on his/her BP based on parents visa status. Don't know how this will work out in your case!! She may not be in a position to get endorsment based on your wife's status, because she is an Indian.

This is not something impossible but takes long time for every one understand, esp. in your absence there.

Summary: Immigration officer at depature point (in India) will ask to justify basis of her stay in India. That's why you need clearence.

PASS

[Joseph]

Joseph's IDEA is misleading, it is illegal to apply for Indian Passport when you've made an application for BC. Indian Govt, won't take this lightly esp. in India.

I understand that India does not allow dual nationality in the case of applying for British or another citizenship (i.e. naturalisation) but this is different. The child did not "become" British by making an application, but "is" a British citizen by parentage at the time of her birth. Likewise, the child is also an Indian Citizen by parentage (I understand the mother is still Indian) and by her place of birth (India). In essence, she is an "involuntary" dual national. Furthermore, the child is currently in India, which means that as an Indian citizen she would be subject to Indian laws solely.

For the child not to be subject to Indian citizenship laws, she would have to lose her Indian citizenship, which I think would be very difficult to have happen while she is still in India. That's why I suggested she needs an Indian passport to leave India. I may be wrong on this: I agree with JAJ that the British High Commission in India would be able to give reliable advice on this.

A question for the India experts: Does India allow (involuntary) dual nationality and passports for children until they become adults and are able to choose for themselves which nationality to keep? Somewhere I seem to recall that this is permitted.

Joseph

[JAJ]

I understand that India does not allow dual nationality in the case of applying for British or another citizenship (i.e. naturalisation) but this is different. The child did not "become" British by making an application, but "is" a British citizen by parentage at the time of her birth. Likewise, the child is also an Indian Citizen by parentage (I understand the mother is still Indian) and by her place of birth (India). In essence, she is an "involuntary" dual national. Furthermore, the child is currently in India, which means that as an Indian citizen she would be subject to Indian laws solely.

AIUI, if someone is automatically dual British/Indian at birth, as soon as a British passport is issued to that person (adult or child) they immediately lose Indian citizenship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_nationality_law

[Joseph]

JAJ,
You're right. Thanks for the clarification. I noticed, however, that under "Overseas citizenship of India" it says:

The Constitution of India does not permit dual citizenship or dual nationality, except for minors where the second nationality was involuntarily acquired.

However, in practice, even the issuance of a second passport constitutes loss of Indian nationality. That is pretty severe!

British,
In any case, the British High Commission should be able to provide the best guidance.

Joseph

[ppron747]

....British,
In any case, the British High Commission should be able to provide the best guidance.
Joseph

Bearing in mind British's previous experiences with the British High Commission in New Delhi - for which the adjective Kafkaesque could have been created - I could quite understand if he were reluctant to take you up on this suggestion!

[John]

LOL .... Kafkaesque ..... "The term, which is quite fluid in definition, has also been described as "marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity"".

Seems to sum up very nicely the whole ethos of IND!

[Dawie]

Let's assume that the child is left solely with British Citizenship and a British passport. The question that is yet to be answered is how will this child be able to leave India on a clean new British passport that effectively has no entry visa for India. Won't the child be considered an illegal immigrant in India? It will effectively be a British citizen in India with no legal leave to remain (or the Indian equivalent thereof).

[British]

"Won't the child be considered an illegal immigrant in India? It will effectively be a British citizen in India with no legal leave to remain (or the Indian equivalent thereof)."

No, that is incorrect. All that my wife will need to do (as recently advised by Immigration office / FRRO in India) is to apply for two things:

1. Residence permit : This will begin from the date of my daughter's birth in India until the date of daparture from India.
This will be pasted into her British passport.

2. A certificate of Exit clearance.
This will be an additional document that we will need to show when flying out of India.

We could also have gone for a PIO card instead of these two documents, but PIO card typically takens about 45 days to get processed in India (in the UK it only took 15 days for my PIO card ), but the above two documents are processed in 2 weeks. This is good since i want to bring my wife and daughter soon to UK, rather than to explain th eadditional time of PIO card processing, that we may end up having to document for ILR application next year and also to answer the Immigration officer at port of UK entry when i bring them to UK.

My wife has enquired about these two things from the Indian Immigration office /FRRO in Chennai and has got the relevant forms, which she will fill up and send once the British passport arrives (its been about 15 days since we had applied for it and the Birth registration with BHC New Delhi - still no news! ).

Also i found this url on exit clearance of forgners born in India:

http://immigrationindia.nic.in/FAQ_Children.htm

These things happen in every country - for example you could have an Indian couple in UK in work permit, who deliver a new baby. The new baby will get an Indian pasport from its consulate in UK. The baby is yet to have any visa in its new passport. That does not mean that it is illegal in the UK.

The parents will just need to apply for a dependant visa or something within a reasonable time once the Indian passport is ready in hand. Its that simple.

Hopefully we will get these things sorted out soon! I cannot miss my wife and daughter any more! I am just losing my patience, as days go by!

[JAJ]

Hopefully we will get these things sorted out soon! I cannot miss my wife and daughter any more! I am just losing my patience, as days go by!

It seems clear that even if the India born child of naturalised British citizens is automatically British (by descent), that from a paperwork point of view, it's a lot simpler to have the child born in the United Kingdom.

[British]

I agree JAJ. But it is too late for me now. I have learnt a lesson by having the delivery in India. I did not realise that the paperwork will be so much of a nightmare!!!!!!!!!!!! (Both the British citizenship and the Indian visa /exit clearance aspects of it).

Not only that, now since my wife is coming back to UK after about 6 months (of course 1.5 months of it was due to British citizensip / Indian visa paper work process time), i will need to do a hekc a lot of evidence collection to document this 6 moths gap properly, for her ILR application next year and also need to keep the paper work ready for her to get a smooth re-entry in to the UK this month sometime, to resume her settlement visa based UK reisdency!

The only comfort is that my wife had a very good time / care during her pregnancy in India with all of our relatives / family around, taking care of her and the excellent medical facilities (of course at a cost! )

But my advise to all future would-be parents (including me, for my next one ) is not to have the baby delivery in India, especially if one of the parent is a British citizen and you wish to take British citizenship for the baby!!!!!!

Do not have the baby delivery in India! Period.

[British]

OK guys, now the good news :-)

I have just now had a call from my wife, with the grand news of the day, that BHC had called up to say that our daughter's British passport + Brith registration (with BHC) has been processed successfully and they are couriering the package (all of our original documents) with her British passport + Brith registration docs. tomorrow, so we will receive it on Saturday!

Now that the British passport/citizenship thing is complete, we will just need to apply for the Indian residence permit + Exit clearance certificate for our daughter - around 2 week's processing time from next Monday i guess. That will mean i will fly to India around 3rd week of this month to bring back my family to UK

I am just so much enjoying the very thought that i have been able to pass on the "British citizenship" to my daughter, just simply like that!
I feel so good about it!

Just thought i will keep you all updated on this good news

I will post my experience about the Indian visa process, forms we applied, etc, later once we have sorted that out too, so it can be useful for somebody who might go through the same in future.

Thanks.

[jjustyy]

Congratulations British Hopefully, it will be plain sailing from now on!

[British]

Cheers , but hang on, there is this Indian status visa and exit clearance to sort out for my daugther.

In thse forms, they have asked on equestion: What was her nationality when she was born????

A Million dollar question really - because as for as Britain is concerned, if we said she was born British and also an Indian (mother an Indian citizen, father a PIO and she having been born in India), it will be OK.

But we cannot say this in Indian forms, becuase India does not allow dual nationality (leave alone this stupid Indian OCI card thing - that is a "citizenship visa" - what on earth that could mean? Eh! funny enough! )

And since India does not allow dual nationality, we cannot say she was Indian) although she was, since if we said indian, she cannot call herself as British too at the same time (India will not accept it!).

In the cover letter and in Form C2 for British passport application, we had clearly said she is a British citizen since birth!

So we will need to be careful as to what we say for this question - I guess we will put the answer as British citizen, anyway... but just thought i will let you know that filling Indian forms is not that simple though! :-)

[Christophe]

So we will need to be careful as to what we say for this question - I guess we will put the answer as British citizen, anyway... but just thought i will let you know that filling Indian forms is not that simple though! :-)

Actually, I know nothing about it (!), but I agree - I'd just put 'British citizen' as the answer to that question. She was indisputably a British citizen from the moment of her birth as far as the British government is concerned, and it is the British government that decides who is a British citizen. Moreover, she will be leaving India as a British citizen on a British passport, so it tallies with that and is less likely than any other answer to raise questions in some official's mind, I think.

What seems so extraordinary about all of this is that the situation can't be so very uncommon - i.e. a child born in India to one Indian parent and one British parent. You would think that both the British authorities in India and the Indian authorities would have seen it all before!

[British]

Hi Chris,

[quote]What seems so extraordinary about all of this is that the situation can't be so very uncommon - i.e. a child born in India to one Indian parent and one British parent. You would think that both the British authorities in India and the Indian authorities would have seen it all before![/quote]

I agree, that will be proved once we are ready to hand over hte filled in applications forms (Indian forms) to Indian Immigration next week.

I guess you are right, its just that this is all "in dark" for us (since there is no ready information about these experiences documented anywhere i know of) i am a bit excited about these.

I can tell you for one, that it was a nightmare to fill-up the British passport application for my daughter, espeically those couple of sheets of cover documents with mine and my wife's comments about how we filled up teh forms, who signs it (countersignatures, section 7 etc.), what communication/replied we had with BHC guys as regards all of our doubts /clarification requests on those odd and vague questions/forms that were there as part of the application, etc, etc.

Since there were no knowledgebase on these things and especially the BHC wer very un-helpful in resolving our doubts/questions even though they were geniunie (in one occassion, they themself said they did not know the answer and asked us to go by our opinion ), it was a difficult process to go through. Anyway, that has now ended OK

That is why, having been bitten before, its now teh turn to fill up the Indian forms, taht is causing us the excitement.

I am sure it will all end fine. like you said, these sorts of things cannot be uncommon, the autorities must know to help us.

Thanks.

[PASS]

British,

It's good that you discussed this issue (child born in India to a father British and mother Indian) which will ultimately help others later.

Your daughter's Indian Exit Clearance is st.forward because you hold PIO card. Fill in as British Citizen and don't forget to attach copy of your PIO card. They may ask for a declaration from your wife that she agree your (her) daughter leaving India (anyway she will be with her all the time)

Best Wishes

Pass

[British]

Hi Guys,

My wife will be applying for the Indian visa and the exit clearance for our daughter next monday.

We have been advised that it will take approximately 2-3 week for this to be processed.

My wife (and me too) wants to fly to UK for a couple of days (3-4 days) next week and then return back to India, so she can again fly to UK later with the baby and me (i will be flying to India to bring them back to UK once our daughter's Indian visa is sorted out!).

We miss each other very badly and we have decided her to fly to UK next week (once she had applied for the Indian visas) and she will stay with me for 3-4 days and then fly back to India (Her and my parents taking care of the new born for these days - she should be OK for 3-4 days since she is now about 4 months old).

Having siad, that all, do you think she will have any issues at UK immigration, especially since she is coming back to UK after about 5 months (documents are all there to justify the stay in India) and especially since she will be flying back to India in 3-4 days and then to come back to UK finally after about 2-3 weeks with our baby?

Please share any thoughts on this.

I know you may ask why can't she wait for another couple of weeks and then finally fly to UK with baby, but we would like to have this interim vist anyway. So...

[mhunjn]

Can't see why she should have any problems. Immigration can't say anything, if you can afford to do it.
Ofcourse, she has to have the relevant visas/ILR etc.

[British]

Cheers mhunjn. Thanks for your comments.

Yes (we can afford it ) she has her valid Spouse / Settlement visa valid upto next year April (April 2007).

[neilroy]

I dont think that will be a problem. My wife was out of county for 6 months twice, once to sit for her exam and other after our baby was born. As long as she has valid entry clerance she should not have any problem at all

[British]

Thanks for that very comforting comments, Neilroy.

regards.