Ayub Khan V. Comissioner of Police. Case

Introduction

This article explains Ayub Khan V. Comissioner of Police case.

Citizenship is the status with an individual perceived under law similar to a lawful individual from a sovereign state or having a place with a country. In India, Articles 5 – 11 of the Constitution manages the idea of citizenship. The term citizenship involves the pleasure in full enrolment of any State wherein a resident has common and political rights

Indian citizenship can be gained by birth, decent, enlistment and naturalization. The conditions and methodology for procurement of Indian citizenship is according to the arrangement of the Citizenship Act, 1955. Citizenship of India by naturalization can be gained by an outsider and not illicit traveller who is customarily occupant in India for a very long time all through the time of a year promptly going before the date of use and for a very long time in the total in the 14 years going before a year and few other qualifications as determined in Third Schedule to the Act.

The Constituent Assembly held the doctrine of jus soli that is “citizenship based on birth on the soil of a country” to be the more “enlightened modern civilised” doctrine, as compared to the “racial” doctrine of jus sanguinis that is citizenship based on descent; although citizenship by descent, as well as registration and naturalisation, also found it’s roots in the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955.

In the present article, one such issue of citizenship was adjudicated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.

Facts of the Case

The appellant in the present case Mohd Ayub Khan has filed the writ petition of mandamus before the High Court of Madras for prohibiting the Commissioner of Police, Madras, from making a move according to the order made by the Government of Madras, Home Department, from meddling with the litigant’s privileges as a resident of India. The petition was dismissed by the lower court and the request was affirmed in offer by a Division Bench of the High Court.

The request for mandamus is of a most broad remedial nature, and is in structure, an order giving from the High Court of Justice, coordinated to any individual, enterprise or lower tribunals, requiring him or them to do some specific thing which applies to his or their office and is in nature of a public obligation. Mandamus isn’t a writ of right, it isn’t therefore conceded obviously, however just at the circumspection of the court to whom the application for it is made; and this discretion isn’t practiced for the petitioner, except if some and helpful reason might be brought out by the writ. A writ of mandamus or cure is pre-eminently a public law and isn’t for the most part accessible against private wrongs. It is utilized for implementation of different privileges of general society or to urge the public legal specialists to release their obligations and to act inside the limits. It could be utilized to do equity when there is improper exercise of force or a refusal to perform obligations

The appealing party stated that he had gained the status as an Indian resident on the initiation of the Constitution as an individual who had been ordinarily resident in the domain of India for at the very least five years immediately preceding the date, was presented with a notification dated July 17, 1957 educating him that as he had acquired Pakistan Passport on 1953 and that he should leave India inside one month from the date of administration of the notification, and in default of consistence he would be indicted and ousted from India under the Foreigners Act, 1946 as corrected by the Foreigners Law (Amendment) Act, 1957.

On August 19, 1957, the appellant Ayub Khan applied to the Collector of Madras for enlistment as a resident of India. Later he applied to the Central Government under Section 9(2) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 to decide the inquiry concerning whether he kept to be a resident of India, and asked that he might be allowed a chance to produce all “essential proof on the side of his case as respects Indian citizenship”. Without bearing the cost of him that chance, nonetheless, the Government of India by request, dated May 7, 1958 dismissed the use of the appealing party under segment 9 of the Citizenship Act.

Issues Raised in the case

In the present case, the following issue has raised for that consideration

“Whether the appellant can challenge the validity of the order of the Commissioner of Police pursuant to the order made by The Central Government under section 9(2) of the Act on the plea that he had not “voluntarily obtained” a passport from the High Commissioner for Pakistan in India”

Summary of the Decision of the Court in the case

The Hon’ble Supreme Court Observed that the inquiry with respect to whether when and how foreign citizenship has been gained must be resolved having respect to the guidelines of proof recommended, and cancellation of Indian citizenship being the outcome of intentional securing of foreign citizenship, the authority has additionally to discover that such last citizenship has been deliberately obtained.

Assurance of the inquiry is a Quasi-judicial enquiry: the resident concerned should be given due notice of the idea of the activity which in the perspective on the authority includes to cancel the Indian citizenship, and reasonable opportunity should be granted to the resident to persuade the power that what is asserted against him isn’t correct. What is the degree and scope of the enquiry to be made by the expert on a pleas and concerns raised by the resident concerned ought to be, relies on the facts and conditions of each case.

The High Court in the appeal was of the view that section 9 set out a target test and whenever it was tracked down that the visa was obtained in fact by an Indian citizen from another country, the law decided the legitimate results of that behaviour and no inquiry of his “purpose or comprehension emerged”. Therefore, the Hon’ble Supreme Court concluded that it can’t concur with that see.

In the event that wilful obtaining of citizenship of another nation decides Indian citizenship inside the importance of area 9(1), and by the virtue of Paragraph 3 of Sch. III of the Citizenship Rules a decisive assumption of wilful procurement of citizenship is to be raised from the getting of a passport from the Government of some other country, it would be certain that the acquiring of a passport was the consequence of the activity of free volition by the resident. This view is again strengthened by the language of section 9(2) read with Rule 30 which examines an enquiry by an authority recommended under sub-segment (2) for assurance of the inquiry whether citizenship of another nation has been procured by an Indian resident.

Therefore, the Hon’ble Supreme Court was of the view that the High Court was in blunder in holding that the choice of the Government of India without allowing a chance to the appealing party to demonstrate his case that he had been constrained by the police to acquire an identification from the High Commissioner for Pakistan will support the request for extradition against the appellant. It will obviously be available to the Central Government to decide if the appealing party has lost the citizenship of India by deliberately procuring the citizenship of Pakistan by getting an identification from the High Commissioner for Pakistan, or in some other way. However, the assurance should be made as per law.

The appeal before the Hon’ble Supreme Court was permitted with no costs, and it was requested that the order for removal passed by the Commissioner of Police, Madras will not be implemented until the Central Government decides the situation with the status of the citizenship as per law.

Analysis of the Judgement

For the purpose of adjudicating the present case, it becomes necessary to understand that individual who at the beginning of the Constitution had his domicile in the region of India and who was brought into the world in the region of India, or both of whose guardians was brought into the world in the region of India, or who had been ordinarily a resident in the domain of India for at the very least five years quickly going before such initiation was considered a resident of India. Article 6 arrangements with the securing of privileges of citizenship of people who have moved to India from Pakistan, and Art. 7 deals with the privileges of citizenship of migrants to Pakistan.

Procurement of citizenship at the beginning of the Constitution was represented by Arts. 5, 6 and 7. Assuming, in any case, an individual had deliberately gained citizenship of a foreign State he shall not be guaranteed with a residential position under Art. 5, and he shall be not considered to be a resident by righteousness of Art. 6 or Art. 8. Article 10 proceeds, subject to the arrangements of any law to be made by Parliament, the privilege of citizenship obtained or considered to be procured under the prior Articles. Force of Parliament to order enactment to make arrangement concerning the procurement and cancellation of citizenship is as an issue of prime significance asserted by Art. 11.

The Parliament by section 9 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 enacted as to assurance of citizenship and gave, inter alia, that an individual who has intentionally obtained since January 26, 1950 or gains after the beginning of the Act citizenship of another nation, will stop to be a resident of Indian nation, and that if any inquiry emerges with respect to whether citizenship of another nation has been procured by an individual, the inquiry should be dictated by the position, in such way and having respect to such standards of proof, as might be recommended for that sake.

In Analysing the Judgement, the petitioner in support of his petition before the High Court for issue of a writ of mandamus, had urged that section 9 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 was ultra vires the Parliament and Clause 3 of Sch. III to the Citizenship Rules was also ultra vires the Central Government, and that in any occasion Rule 30 of the Citizenship Rules thought about a quasi-judicial inquiry in which a chance should be given to the affected party in this present case, to make a portrayal and to cite proof to show that the procurement of an identification from the High Commissioner for Pakistan was not intentional.

Furthermore, Justice. Balakrishna Ayyar of Madras High Court rejected these contentions. In dealing with the question whether the order of the Central Government was unenforceable because opportunity to prove the appellant’s case that he had not voluntarily renounced Indian citizenship, the learned Judge observed that the appellant “had not indicated on what points he intended to lead evidence and what kind of evidence he intended to adduce“.

In appeal before the Hon’ble High Court held that the appellant “had truth be told made an assertion based on which the passport was gotten and the charges made by him didn’t suggest that he had to make a bogus statement”. In the perspective on the High Court section 9 lays down a target test and when the individual had brought himself inside it, the law decides the lawful outcomes of the circumstance, autonomously of his goal or understanding, and hence there was no degree for an enquiry of the nature asserted by the appellant in the present case.

Conclusion

Therefore, in the present case the assertion was granted that the power to examine the status of the citizenship is specifically granted to the Central government and until then the Madras government’s order shall not have any implication. Furthermore, the petitioner or the appellant was granted an opportunity to present his side of the case. Therefore, the supreme court allowed the present appeal. Furthermore, India’s Constitution is a record that incorporates the goals of variety and pluralism into the structural plan of how we are administered, from reservations for economically and most backward classes to social rights for strict minorities.Kishinchand Chellaram v. Commissioner of Income Tax(63 AIR 390; 1963 SCR (2) 268.)https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1591175/