And So The Story Goes.. (Surrender Certificates)

After not having received much response about certificates and OCI from this portal, not because people weren't being helpful, but the confusion surrounding this issue, I decided to check it out for myself. For all you newbie Brits, this is the information straight from the horse's mouth! I went to the HCI London to surrender my passport, and in the 1.5 hour-long wait, in -2C temperature, I learnt some important things, not to mention from the lady at the counter! I arrived at the embassy at 07:40 in the morning (after having travelled from Southampton since 5 am in the morning!), and there were 50 people in the queue before me! The counter opened at 08:30 to issue tokens and the queue moved quite rapidly after that. I was done with submitting my passport and the application form by 10:30, so it was quick and painless.

There is one major discrepancy between what the HCI London website states, and what actually happens at the embassy!

You CANNOT submit your OCI application and application to surrender the passport at the same time!! (although the website says you can apply for OCI even if you haven’t received your surrender certificate, as they will check it before they stamp the OCI sticker in your passport after 8 weeks!) You have to first surrender certificate and once you receive it, only then can you apply for the OCI!

So that’s 4 trips in total.

1. To surrender the passport (between 08:30 – 12pm)
2. To collect the certificate (between 15:30 – 16:30)
3. To submit OCI application (between 08:30 – 12pm)
4. To collect OCI card (have to queue up in the morning to collect
token, submit your British passport), and then queue up in the
evening to collect your British passport and the OCI card!

All ex-Indians, who now hold a British passport/Citizenship, MUST surrender their Indian passport to the HCI closest to you.

1) If you don't have an Indian passport, and if it has expired by now (if you would have possessed it), you need to get a notarised affidavit done AND pay the £90 for the surrender certificate! The notarised affidavit can be made at your local court or through a solicitor, which might cost you under £100.
2) ) If you don't have an Indian passport, and if it has NOT expired by now (if you would have possessed it), you need to get a notarised affidavit done AND get a police report/incident number AND pay the £90 for the surrender certificate! The notarised affidavit can be made at your local court or through a solicitor, which might cost you under £100.
3) If you have your Indian passport, include your Indian passport and lots of photocopies AND pay the £90 to get the surrender certificate.
4) Please surrender your Indian passport as soon as feasible. The penalty gets worse! For information, check out the information in the table below (Scroll to the bottom of the page)
http://www.cgibirmingham.org/consrvcs.htm

All the above SHOULD be accompanied by a Surrender Certificate Application form, which can be found at http://www.cgiedinburgh.org/PassportAnd ... ices.shtml (highlighted in orange-yellow after the first paragraph). I could not find this on HCI London’s website, or maybe it is was as obscure as the information on that site!!

NOTE: Surrendering of the passport MUST be done in person at the HCI closest to you. You MAY ask them to return it by post, provided you give a self-addressed envelope (not sure about this, please check with the lady at the counter).

5) If you are not applying for an OCI or PIO, but just an Indian tourist visa as a British National, if you are an ex-Indian, then you will have to show a copy of your surrender certificate BEFORE you get the visa issued! You may ask – I’m a British citizen, and I am entitled to a Indian tourist visa just like every foreign visitor, so why ask for a surrender certificate?? Answer is – your Indian tourist visa application form will ask the question – What is your previous nationality? – and once you answer “Indianâ€

Oh, and guess what?? This £90 surrender certificate fee is ONLY applicable in the UK! One can surrender their Indian passport anywhere in the world for free, even in the USA, but not in UK!!! Talk about daylight robbery!

I am really surprised that no one is challenging the whole surrendering of passport with a fee. See my post in this thread: http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=45103

GoodFun wrote:I have just been reading this tread all over again and there seems to be one major discrepancy here.

HCI London have the following information regarding surrendering of passport:

http://hcilondon.in/renunciation.php

Now this is the issue that I have:

http://www.mha.nic.in/citizenship/acquire1.htm
(The reference to the full Act is: http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/ic_act55.pdf)

If you read the above "Termination of Indian citizenship [section 9 (1)]" it implies that as soon as one gets naturalised say as a British Citizen then the Indian citizenship is automatically terminated at this point.

Now if this is the case then why in the world are the Indian missions in UK charging a renunciation fee as the person is no longer an Indian citizen hence there is no need to renounce the Indian citizenship.

Also the £90 (Rs 7000) quoted as the fee for this service is a renunciation fee. I do not see any mention of passport surrendering fee on the following website that is quoted as the source for the fee amount:

http://www.mha.nic.in/uniquepage.asp?ID_PK=77

Finally, the thing that bothers me more than paying a fee for this is the fact that the Indian missions are retaining the cancelled/surrendered passports. If this is to prevent being used for travel then a cancelled passport would certainly not be much use for the same.

Passports hold travel history, have immense nostalgic value and can be called upon in future say to prove a child's entitlement to British citizenship if the child is born after parents got settlement but before they obtained British citizenship.

As cancelled passports are returned to the holder the same should be the case with surrendered passports.

Is this worth pursuing...

I personally think that after the ordeal you go through for getting an OCI/PIO/Tourist Visa, you are so relieved to have everything sorted that you don't care anymore! You are right in saying that the passport is automatically void once one attains foreign nationality, so I don't know why the need to emphasise this even more with an additional payment of £90! I read the Passport Act (of 1967) over and over again, and it only repeats one thing - that the Indian citizenship is invalid once you get your foreign citizenship, so we are actually paying the £90 for something that's already cancelled and void?!

GoodFun wrote:I am really surprised that no one is challenging the whole surrendering of passport with a fee. See my post in this thread: http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=45103

GoodFun wrote:I have just been reading this tread all over again and there seems to be one major discrepancy here.

HCI London have the following information regarding surrendering of passport:

http://hcilondon.in/renunciation.php

Now this is the issue that I have:

http://www.mha.nic.in/citizenship/acquire1.htm
(The reference to the full Act is: http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/ic_act55.pdf)

If you read the above "Termination of Indian citizenship [section 9 (1)]" it implies that as soon as one gets naturalised say as a British Citizen then the Indian citizenship is automatically terminated at this point.

Now if this is the case then why in the world are the Indian missions in UK charging a renunciation fee as the person is no longer an Indian citizen hence there is no need to renounce the Indian citizenship.

Also the £90 (Rs 7000) quoted as the fee for this service is a renunciation fee. I do not see any mention of passport surrendering fee on the following website that is quoted as the source for the fee amount:

http://www.mha.nic.in/uniquepage.asp?ID_PK=77

Finally, the thing that bothers me more than paying a fee for this is the fact that the Indian missions are retaining the cancelled/surrendered passports. If this is to prevent being used for travel then a cancelled passport would certainly not be much use for the same.

Passports hold travel history, have immense nostalgic value and can be called upon in future say to prove a child's entitlement to British citizenship if the child is born after parents got settlement but before they obtained British citizenship.

As cancelled passports are returned to the holder the same should be the case with surrendered passports.

Is this worth pursuing...

Shadow Love wrote:I personally think that after the ordeal you go through for getting an OCI/PIO/Tourist Visa, you are so relieved to have everything sorted that you don't care anymore! You are right in saying that the passport is automatically void once one attains foreign nationality, so I don't know why the need to emphasise this even more with an additional payment of £90! I read the Passport Act (of 1967) over and over again, and it only repeats one thing - that the Indian citizenship is invalid once you get your foreign citizenship, so we are actually paying the £90 for something that's already cancelled and void?!

GoodFun wrote:I am really surprised that no one is challenging the whole surrendering of passport with a fee. See my post in this thread: http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=45103

GoodFun wrote:I have just been reading this tread all over again and there seems to be one major discrepancy here.

HCI London have the following information regarding surrendering of passport:

http://hcilondon.in/renunciation.php

Now this is the issue that I have:

http://www.mha.nic.in/citizenship/acquire1.htm
(The reference to the full Act is: http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/ic_act55.pdf)

If you read the above "Termination of Indian citizenship [section 9 (1)]" it implies that as soon as one gets naturalised say as a British Citizen then the Indian citizenship is automatically terminated at this point.

Now if this is the case then why in the world are the Indian missions in UK charging a renunciation fee as the person is no longer an Indian citizen hence there is no need to renounce the Indian citizenship.

Also the £90 (Rs 7000) quoted as the fee for this service is a renunciation fee. I do not see any mention of passport surrendering fee on the following website that is quoted as the source for the fee amount:

http://www.mha.nic.in/uniquepage.asp?ID_PK=77

Finally, the thing that bothers me more than paying a fee for this is the fact that the Indian missions are retaining the cancelled/surrendered passports. If this is to prevent being used for travel then a cancelled passport would certainly not be much use for the same.

Passports hold travel history, have immense nostalgic value and can be called upon in future say to prove a child's entitlement to British citizenship if the child is born after parents got settlement but before they obtained British citizenship.

As cancelled passports are returned to the holder the same should be the case with surrendered passports.

Is this worth pursuing...

I am challeging this with a petition in the High Court . Please see the other topic where I have posted. Passport Act says nothing about retaining the passports by HCI's anywhere. Also I will be mentioning about the ridiculous fees in the petetion. One good point as pointed by you above is that once you are not a citizen there is no need to surrender the passport and we are paying for nothing. but just to get the OCI ...

I request public to bring any good points they can think of to put them in this forum so I can Include them in the petition as I will be spending a lot on the court case and I want some positive results. I am actively monitoring all the posts as the petition drafting is in progress. Thanks to all.


Gaj

I agree with you all.
I strongly feel it is very unfair on us here and still most of us Indians are dancing to their tune. Not many have raised their voices. Can we not unite against this. I have seen the petition and seen that they are not many there. sad....
What about those people and there are many of us who work hard and are living literally from hand to mouth making ends meet. And then there are old people who are on pension who can hardly survive on that money. Families on benefits, income support or very low income. How can they afford to pay £90 per person, which might be their food bill for 2 weeks, which is true for many of us even if we dont want to admit. We try to save hard every penny and then help our old folks back home, which we feel is our moral obligation. There are many of us who just cannot afford it, it is almost the same cost of my ticket back home which I intended to go after 5 yrs, but sadly wont be able to make it. And yes I had taken a visa on my British passport.
They are really acting very unreasonable,
- why do we have to surrender passports, it is our Indian identity which is all left with us
- then the fees are so high
- you cant even send it by post, you have to go and give it and collect it.
Spend 2 whole days unpaid because of them.
My friend had to go back again on third day because there were some mistakes done by them (HIgh commission people) which they wouldnt accept and asked her to apply again. And yes she wasnt the only one in that situation.
I cant afford to go to court, but is there some other way of appealing against them without any charges please let me know. I dont think involving an MP would help, will it.

Forgot to mention what about if we - I mean several of us report it to the newspapers, watchdog, panorama ..... There must be some standards committee or so. I know many of us Indians are lawyers can they not atleast advise route of action even if they are not going to do something about it themselves.

I don't think the HCI is bound by any legal obligations or is governed by an organisation like a "Watchdog" or "Consumer Rights", the reason being that it is not a corporation. It is more political and bureacuratic than a service provided to public. Also, the law of England/UK does not apply to the HCI as you are on "Indian Soil" when you are in the HCI, and they are governed by the laws that are passed by the Indian Govt. only. I agree with you - there should be more people protesting about this; but I guess this has always been a trait of Indians - Laidback and tolerant, so they (we) just put up with all the c**p that's dished out!

sdq wrote:Forgot to mention what about if we - I mean several of us report it to the newspapers, watchdog, panorama ..... There must be some standards committee or so. I know many of us Indians are lawyers can they not atleast advise route of action even if they are not going to do something about it themselves.

Once I have got British citizenship can I travel to France or USA on my British passport and get my Indian passport cacelled there as they are still cutting the corners and return the passport back to you without any charge?

I really do not want to surrender my Indian passports(one valid and another expired). It has nostagic value and stamps from all the countries I have visited. These are important memories for me. My daughter who is now 2 would like to see her Indian passport when she is grown up.

It is not about money. I am willing to pay £90 only if they cancel my passport and give it back to me. Why does HCI want our cancelled passports and what will they do with them. I am sure they will shred them may be after 10 years. This rule is idiotic.

Gaj, you seem to be serious about doing something about this. I am happy to offer support to you including monetary support. I think we should challenge the rule in court in India with a good lawyer. We might win this as we did with HSMP here in UK

Yes, You can travel to any other country and surrender it, but two things - One, you will have to hang around there for a week, because they don't give you the SC straightaway. You can only collect it after a week. Two, you will still not get your passport back. You will only be able to surrender it for free.

I think (from what I have read so far), the Indian givt. is cracking down on "Illegal trave", by expats, who despite knowing they need a visa to travel to India, travel on their Indian passport (which is no longer valid) just to save some money. And some people go as far as renewing their Indian passport after it has expired, despite having their foreign passport! Also, apparently, this is due to them heightening their "security measures" in the wake of the recent attacks in India.

I agree with you that passports are nostalgic, but I don't think Indian government cares much about that sentiment.

TC wrote:Once I have got British citizenship can I travel to France or USA on my British passport and get my Indian passport cacelled there as they are still cutting the corners and return the passport back to you without any charge?

I really do not want to surrender my Indian passports(one valid and another expired). It has nostagic value and stamps from all the countries I have visited. These are important memories for me. My daughter who is now 2 would like to see her Indian passport when she is grown up.

It is not about money. I am willing to pay £90 only if they cancel my passport and give it back to me. Why does HCI want our cancelled passports and what will they do with them. I am sure they will shred them may be after 10 years. This rule is idiotic.

Gaj, you seem to be serious about doing something about this. I am happy to offer support to you including monetary support. I think we should challenge the rule in court in India with a good lawyer. We might win this as we did with HSMP here in UK

That is Impressive shadow Love. Can you post it in the surrender certificate section as well

Shadow Love wrote:Yes, You can travel to any other country and surrender it, but two things - One, you will have to hang around there for a week, because they don't give you the SC straightaway. You can only collect it after a week. Two, you will still not get your passport back. You will only be able to surrender it for free.

I think (from what I have read so far), the Indian givt. is cracking down on "Illegal trave", by expats, who despite knowing they need a visa to travel to India, travel on their Indian passport (which is no longer valid) just to save some money. And some people go as far as renewing their Indian passport after it has expired, despite having their foreign passport! Also, apparently, this is due to them heightening their "security measures" in the wake of the recent attacks in India.

I agree with you that passports are nostalgic, but I don't think Indian government cares much about that sentiment.

TC wrote:Once I have got British citizenship can I travel to France or USA on my British passport and get my Indian passport cacelled there as they are still cutting the corners and return the passport back to you without any charge?

I really do not want to surrender my Indian passports(one valid and another expired). It has nostagic value and stamps from all the countries I have visited. These are important memories for me. My daughter who is now 2 would like to see her Indian passport when she is grown up.

It is not about money. I am willing to pay £90 only if they cancel my passport and give it back to me. Why does HCI want our cancelled passports and what will they do with them. I am sure they will shred them may be after 10 years. This rule is idiotic.

Gaj, you seem to be serious about doing something about this. I am happy to offer support to you including monetary support. I think we should challenge the rule in court in India with a good lawyer. We might win this as we did with HSMP here in UK

'Surrender Certificate' requirement is only for (so called Wealthy) UK citizens so what 'Surrender Certificate' you are talking about?

Someone on this board even said one can directly apply for OCI in Ireland(Dublin) without needing the SC....

Well, I don't think I spoke about any other Nationality but British. This post was created to provide information for people living in the UK (and as far as I remember, Ireland does not constitute part of the UK - Northern Ireland does). As a British Citizen, one has to surrender their Indian passport, AND pay for it too, whereas in other countries, you don't have to pay anything AND one MAY even get their cancelled passports back. I am not doing reasearch on how OCI works in every country; only interested in knowing how the Indian High Commission goes about with its new-found rules and regulations that seem to apply only to this country!! And it appalls and disgusts me that UK citizens are subjected to such rigmarole, and HCIs of other countries are more relaxed in their approach towards OCI process.

gainvidya wrote:

'Surrender Certificate' requirement is only for (so called Wealthy) UK citizens so what 'Surrender Certificate' you are talking about?

Someone on this board even said one can directly apply for OCI in Ireland(Dublin) without needing the SC....[/quote]

Guys,

I am planning to apply my surrender certificate through post i have the following questions

1) Postal order i need take on the name of High Commission of India, London is it correct or not

2) My documents need to send te following address is it correct or not

Passport Section
High Commission of India, London
India House, Aldwych,
London - WC2B 4 NA

Thanks for your help

As far as I know, I "think" you can't apply by post. You can receive the SC by post by giving a self-addressed envelope, but whomever I spoke to whilst I was at the embassy said that this needed to be done in person. But you can try sending them an e-mail to clarify this. Also, the HCI website does not mention anything either. I found some information on the CGI Birmingham site (scroll to the bottom) however, but it does not mention whether a postal application could be made. http://www.cgibirmingham.org/mainindx.html

gg234 wrote:Guys,

I am planning to apply my surrender certificate through post i have the following questions

1) Postal order i need take on the name of High Commission of India, London is it correct or not

2) My documents need to send te following address is it correct or not

Passport Section
High Commission of India, London
India House, Aldwych,
London - WC2B 4 NA

Thanks for your help

Thanks for your reply.Could you please check this statement
From the following page

http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewto ... &start=720

Thanks for the information. Like I said in my earlier post, I only think that this is the case. If there have been members on this forum who have successfully surrendered their passport and received their SC, then I would suggest you check with them. I went to the HCI only because I did not receive any information or help from any forums whether surrendering by post was possible.

gg234 wrote:Thanks for your reply.Could you please check this statement

Code: Select all

Applied for Indian Passport/Citizenship Surrender Certificate by post.

Sent application by Special Delivery on 23rd Nov 2009, enclosing ALL of my Indian passports, copy of British Naturalisation Certificate, copies of Indian passports, copy of British Passport and a crossed PO for £90. Also enclosed a self-addressed Special Delivery envelope for the Surrender Certificate.

Received the Surrender Certificate on 3rd Dec 2009. Not a bad turnaround!

The one thing that was being hotly debated is whether I should submit only my last Indian passport or include all previous ones too. Going by the advice on this forum, I thought it sensible to submit the whole lot. Glad I did.

Next step, OCI!

From the following page

http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewto ... &start=720

Shadow Love wrote:Thanks for the information. Like I said in my earlier post, I only think that this is the case. If there have been members on this forum who have successfully surrendered their passport and received their SC, then I would suggest you check with them. I went to the HCI only because I did not receive any information or help from any forums whether surrendering by post was possible.

gg234 wrote:Thanks for your reply.Could you please check this statement

Code: Select all

Applied for Indian Passport/Citizenship Surrender Certificate by post.

Sent application by Special Delivery on 23rd Nov 2009, enclosing ALL of my Indian passports, copy of British Naturalisation Certificate, copies of Indian passports, copy of British Passport and a crossed PO for £90. Also enclosed a self-addressed Special Delivery envelope for the Surrender Certificate.

Received the Surrender Certificate on 3rd Dec 2009. Not a bad turnaround!

The one thing that was being hotly debated is whether I should submit only my last Indian passport or include all previous ones too. Going by the advice on this forum, I thought it sensible to submit the whole lot. Glad I did.

Next step, OCI!

From the following page

http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewto ... &start=720

I submitted only my valid passport but not the expired one and I did not have a problem with surrender certificate

Now, the most important thing of all –

If you have travelled on your Indian passport WITHIN 3 months of getting your citizenship/passport, then you are exempt from any penalty, as there is a 3-month grace period given by the Indian Govt. to travel on the Indian passport.
If you have travelled on your Indian passport AFTER 3 months of getting your citizenship/passport, then you will be penalised for EVERY trip you made on the passport, and each trip can cost upto £125!! (yes, that’s extortion!) AND pay the £90 for the surrender certificate!

Hi Shadow love,
I just wanted to know where you obtained this information. is this from the hci website? or from someone in the hci office?
I obtained naturalisation on oct 28th 2009. Before i could apply for a british passport, surrender certificate, oci etc, i had to urgently travel to india due to a family bereavement. I returned after 80 days on Jan 20th 2010. I have now got my british passport last week and plan to go through the difficult process of getting surrender certificate and oci.

I read your post about the 3 month grace period and that gave me some reassurance. We had already made up our minds that we will have to pay the 125£ penalty for the travel on indian passport after being naturalised.
However if there was such a grace period it would be beneficial for people like me, who were unaware that as soon as you are naturalised your indian passport is not valid. I was under the impression that until you get your british passport, the indian one was valid. Obviously, now I know I was wrong but people can make mistakes and 125£ is a very expensive fine. I hope you can tell me where this information you obtained.
Thanks in advance

I think we are bowing down to High Commission India's demand of BIG fees which all seems illegal.

You can submit by post and I can confirm this. We have also had luck by submitting on the valid passports and not the cancelled ones. We got our certificates within 2 weeks, but that was somewhere in December 2009. Don't know about the current situation.

Shadow Love wrote:
So that’s 4 trips in total.

1. To surrender the passport (between 08:30 – 12pm)
2. To collect the certificate (between 15:30 – 16:30)
3. To submit OCI application (between 08:30 – 12pm)
4. To collect OCI card (have to queue up in the morning to collect
token, submit your British passport), and then queue up in the
evening to collect your British passport and the OCI card!

All ex-Indians, who now hold a British passport/Citizenship, MUST surrender their Indian passport to the HCI closest t...:

I am in the same shoes as you are, and I am wondering even more Why is "Mera Bharat Mahan"

Hi, My mum wants to apply for an OCI. She has her very old Indian passport, as she has been an British Citizen for over 40 years.
Does she need a surrender cert or an Affidavit? If so why, as she has the old physical passport with the edges cut off - like old UK passports, would photocopies of this and her education certificates not suffice?