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Dear Sir/Madam,

I have been living in the U.K. from 4th January 2017 until 17th August 2021 on a dependent spouse visa. I am married to a British citizen. I was about to make the paper application to continue my UK visa but due to family medical emergency I had to go to India on 17th August 2021 and I was in India for three months. My visa expired on 18th August 2021. I re-entered the UK via the employer sponsored skilled worker visa and it is still valid until November 2024.

Since my wife is British citizen and we have been living together from January 2017, am I eligible to apply for the Indefinite Leave to remain or British citizenship, as the rule says, it is possible if the person is living in a civil relationship with British citizen for more than three years before making the application.

Kindly advise if I can apply for ILR or British naturalisation?

Thank you,
KP

Since my wife is British citizen and we have been living together from January 2017, am I eligible to apply for the Indefinite Leave to remain

No. You need ilr after 5 years on your current visa before you can apply for ilr based on 5 years residence.

or British citizenship, as the rule says, it is possible if the person is living in a civil relationship with British citizen for more than three years before making the application.

You need ilr before you can apply for British citizenship.

There is no shortcut to ilr as you changed visa categories.

Naturalisation and ILR are two different applications, made under different laws and with different requirements.

To naturalise as the spouse of a British citizen, you need to
(a) been resident in the UK for at least three years, AND
(b) hold ILR.

However, there are currently very few way to acquire ILR in a period less than five years (mostly under the Entrepreneur/Investor streams,etc).

So, in effect, you can only apply for naturalisation immediatly after you are granted ILR (under the rules of whatever stream you are currently on). And that will likely be five years from the date of the most recent visa grant if you have changed streams.

Keep in mind that the five year clock to ILR restarts from zero each time you change streams. So, for instance, if you move back from the sponsored SKilled Worker visa to a spousal visa, your five year ILR clock will reset to zero again.