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Hello

I've just applied for British citizenship under 5 year eligibility. I satisfy all the criteria. I am currently in the UK.

I've received a letter from the Indian High Commission saying they revoked my Indian passport because I have not attended hearings in the family court in India for my ongoing divorce case.

Does the revoking affect my citizenship application?

Thanks

It shouldnt do! To apply for UK passport you would have to surrender the Indian one anyway so keep hold of the letter and once you are hopefully approved, send that letter with ur indian passport along woth the application form so they can see the passport has been cancelled/revoked same thing really.

Thanks for this. I'm getting conflicting advice from OISC advisers.
One said they don't know if the Home Office checks with the Indian authorities. Sit tight.
Another said HO doesn't have the jurisdiction to check with HCI and by applying for BC I'm technically revoking my Indian passport anyway.
Third one said it could have a detrimental effect on my application- gave me an appointment to discuss further!

pr_uk wrote:Thanks for this. I'm getting conflicting advice from OISC advisers.
One said they don't know if the Home Office checks with the Indian authorities. Sit tight.
Another said HO doesn't have the jurisdiction to check with HCI and by applying for BC I'm technically revoking my Indian passport anyway.
Third one said it could have a detrimental effect on my application- gave me an appointment to discuss further!

The 2nd one sounds right. Third one is after your money!!

chocolateorange88 wrote:It shouldnt do! To apply for UK passport you would have to surrender the Indian one anyway so keep hold of the letter and once you are hopefully approved, send that letter with ur indian passport along woth the application form so they can see the passport has been cancelled/revoked same thing really.

My understanding is you have to surrender your indian passport after you have obtained your british passport. Otherwise, you will end up with no travel document in the interim period, i.e. after surrendering your indian passport and obtaining your british one.

Thanks chocolateorange88. I don't mean to sound like a doubting thomas, but do you know of any examples of people being approved without having a valid passport from their previous country? I just wanted to make sure your opinion (which I'm very glad to hear of) is based on some experience/knowledge. Naturally it works to my favour if the HO don't care/check validity of Indian passport. Thanks again.

Do you really think HO has the time to contact each and every embassy to check the validity of passports?

If HO does have a query, they will likely write to you for more information.

To the best of my knowledge, the revocation of your Indian passport will have no negative impact on your citizenship application. Remember that revocation of your Indian passport does not mean revocation of Indian citizenship, merely that you can not travel until you have got an alternate travel document, which you will when you get a British passport.

Your citizenship application is purely based on the information held by the UK authorities on you, including the information submitted by you in your application form. Your passport is primarily used to verify details and to verify your dates of absences. Some people on these forums have applied with an expired passport and have been successful.

The difficulty that you will face is with getting a surrender certificate from the Indian High Commission, which is then required to get either a travel visa or OCI to travel back to India. So, you will be in a situation that you can travel the world on your British passport, but you may not be able to travel to India. But that is a battle for another day.

pr_uk wrote:Hello

I've just applied for British citizenship under 5 year eligibility. I satisfy all the criteria. I am currently in the UK.

I've received a letter from the Indian High Commission saying they revoked my Indian passport because I have not attended hearings in the family court in India for my ongoing divorce case.

Does the revoking affect my citizenship application?

Thanks

As the revocation relates to a wholly domestic & civil matter it should also have no bearing on assessment of your good character as per latest HO practice & UK requirements for naturalisation.

Thank you all. Really appreciate the help.

Slightly different take on the issue.
Revocation of passport is a serious matter. Here the actual case is of ignoring court summons and possibly contempt of court which can result in a criminal charge attracting a prison term, no matter if it is due to a civil issue. Your civil issue has snowballed in to a possible criminal case which led to revocation of your passport.

Not aware of the chronology of events here but did you declare this in your BC application form that your passport has been revoked? It clearly asks if you have any pending judgements against you in any country and revocation of passport is certainly not a civil issue.

Why do you want to overlook such a serious matter? Since your home country has revoked your passport, the police might be looking for you at all ports of entry.

pr_uk wrote:I've received a letter from the Indian High Commission saying they revoked my Indian passport

On a point of interest, did you receive the letter from the High Commision before or after you submitted your citizenship application?

Manka10 wrote:Here the actual case is of ignoring court summons and possibly contempt of court which can result in a criminal charge attracting a prison term, no matter if it is due to a civil issue.

It seems that in India, contempt of court is not necessarily a criminal offenceand hence there is no criminal proceeding to declare.

Manka10 wrote:Since your home country has revoked your passport, the police might be looking for you at all ports of entry.

The police in his home country, not in the UK. Contempt of court is not normally something that is an extraditable offence and hence I doubt the police in the UK would be looking for him. And as I had mentioned in my earlier post, he will almost certainly have issues reentering his home country, even on a British passport. But that is a battle for another day.

pr_uk wrote:I have not attended hearings in the family court in India for my ongoing divorce case.

On a completely different point, complications with your divorce proceedings back home may cause issues if you were to remarry and want to bring your new spouse to the UK. Do not neglect those proceedings.

To answer the points raised and furnish additional information which I hadn't given as thought it may be confusing...

I got the letter from the high commission after I sent the application.

I also have a stay order from the high court on the order of the family court. This had already been faxed to the high commission in the UK a few weeks ago, but they seem not to have received it.

I will be sending the high commission the stay order, and also point out that the family judge had no jurisdiction to issue an order to revoke my passport. My lawyers in India have mentioned this in their petition too.

If thats the case then kick that judge's arse for overstepping authority. How can the passport be revoked by someone who has no jurisdiction over the matter? Doesn't it get reviewed by someone higher up before taking such an extreme step?!

File a case against that dumbass judge itself for obstruction or whatever

Hopefully I can take steps after my citizenship comes through.

Manka10 wrote:If thats the case then kick that judge's arse for overstepping authority. How can the passport be revoked by someone who has no jurisdiction over the matter? Doesn't it get reviewed by someone higher up before taking such an extreme step?!

File a case against that dumbass judge itself for obstruction or whatever

Sounds very American. Not the way that such matters are dealt with elsewhere. It would be much more dignified and respectful (at least of the post, if not the person).

pr_uk wrote:Hopefully I can take steps after my citizenship comes through.

Remember that after you become a British citizen (and consequently lose your Indian citizenship), your access to the Indian court system may be altered.