Surrendring Indian passport

[sunilsp]

Applied by post on 11th Jan and spoke to them after 3 weeks......they advised me that I’ll get only after 15 Feb although the website says 7 days for SC.

[garichd]

Hello,

I will be appying for me and my family's surrender certificates soon by post to HCI London.

Can some one please confirm the name to which postal orders should be issued.

Thanks
Gari.

[GoodFun]

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...

[LondonGirl]

I have been told that I have to surrender my passport before applying for a PIO card.

Does anyone have recent experience of the PIO application process following this new rule?

- Do we have to surrender our latest, and possibly, valid passport? Or all passports? Is it £90 per passport being surrendered?
How long does it take to get a surrender certificate from the Indian High Commission in London?

- For the PIO application, is it sufficient to provide photocopies of the surrendered passport along with the surrender certificate? Are we supposed to provide all previous (expired) Indian passports as well?

Of course, they could just cancel the passport when someone applies for a PIO card, and save everyone this headache of an added step.

Londongirl.

[PCB]

Hello Friends,

Soon I will be receving my British Passport. Now I started preparing for OCI. Got to know I need to surrender my Indian passport to apply for OCI.

Could any one who already applied advice on the followings.

1. Do I need to fill any surrender form. If it is please let me know where can I find.

2. What documents I need to submit.

Appreciate your help and thanks in advance.

Cheers,
PCB

[Shadow Love]

I acquired British Citizenship in September 2009, and received my British Passport in November 2009. I had to travel to France on my Indian Passport in Sept 2009 AFTER receiving my citizenship. I wasn't aware that my Indian Passport was then void, as I did not have any other travel document, and the plan was made well before the citizenship ceremony. My questions are:-

1. Will I be penalised for travelling on my Indian passport after acquiring British citizenship?

2. If I have lost my Indian passport, can I still apply for a OCI? Do I have to pay the penalty? Do I have to pay extra to get any documents saying my passport is lost/stolen? Is there any way the HCI will know I have travelled to France on my Indian passport??

3. If I just don't surrender my Indian passport, and if I apply for an Indian visa on my British Passport, is there any way the HCI can know that I haven't surrendered my Indian passport? Since I now hold a British passport, I could just be any foreign national applying for a visa to India, right?

It would be much appreciated if someone could help me out with all these questions. I had planned to apply for a OCI and had all the documents and money ready, when I came across the "surrender certificate" on the HCI website, and one thing led to another.

Please help!!

[chakku71]

Hi I applied for SC to CGI-Birmingham on the 28th of January. I am yet to receive even an acknowledgement. I had not attached any self-addressed return envelopes as it was not part of the requirements. Should I be getting worried or is this time line a normal delay for postal applications?

[indianadr]

Hi I applied for SC to CGI-Birmingham on the 28th of January. I am yet to receive even an acknowledgement. I had not attached any self-addressed return envelopes as it was not part of the requirements. Should I be getting worried or is this time line a normal delay for postal applications?

Hi,

At CGI BIR, it is better to submit for SC or for OCI via personally. You can do both at same time too and added advantage is that they check the photos (for OCI) then and there.

For such (personal) applications they clearly stating to check after 12 weeks.
So you can guess for postal applcations it will take more time at CGI BIR.

Hope this helps

Mallik

[Gaj]

I have through a lawyer found out the passports Act does not mention anything about retaining of the surrendered passports by HCI london.
I will be soon filing a petition in the High Court for them to return the passports and the charging of the unreasonable fees. Lets see what comes through.

[Gaj]

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 pursuing this in the High Court at my expense and will keep people updated on this forum. Please make HCI london or whereever that they are not doing a legal thing by retaining the old/surrendered passports.
--Gaj

[Shadow Love]

Like I said before, the surrender fee is only charged by the Indian High Commission in the UK, and no where else in the world! You can walk into any other embassy and surrender it for free (apparently)! So why fleece the British Indians?!
Also, I read through the Passport Act twice, and you are right, there is no mention of the surrender act, but unfortunately, that does not mean that Indian Govt. cannot pass new laws regarding incidents like this. They are ruled by their own jurisdiction and laws, which seem to change every day!

I have through a lawyer found out the passports Act does not mention anything about retaining of the surrendered passports by HCI london.
I will be soon filing a petition in the High Court for them to return the passports and the charging of the unreasonable fees. Lets see what comes through.

[chakku71]

Hi I applied for SC to CGI-Birmingham on the 28th of January. I am yet to receive even an acknowledgement. I had not attached any self-addressed return envelopes as it was not part of the requirements. Should I be getting worried or is this time line a normal delay for postal applications?

UPDATE
A friend of mine went to Birmingham for submitting his surrender certificat+OCI together (apparently you can do that in Birmingham). I gave him details of my application for surrender certificate. He confronted the personnel and surprise surprise- it was ready by the 16th of Feb (i.e 2 weeks after application). It was sitting in the office and not been posted for a month because I had not submitted a self addressed envelope The friend however managed to recover the certificate and I am now planning to submit the OCI in person.

[AkashS]

Many people shouts about that £90 (or equv to Rs. 7000/-) fees in order to surrender their Indian Passport should they get British or any other country citizenship. They shout that Indian Govt don’t care about their people. How the hell on earth you are “Our Peopleâ€

[benz52]

Hi folks,

Just wondering if one can apply for a surrender certificate by simply submitting the Indian passport and the naturalisation certificate while the British passport has only been applied for?

Thanks
T

[gg234]

Simple answer is no

Hi folks,

Just wondering if one can apply for a surrender certificate by simply submitting the Indian passport and the naturalisation certificate while the British passport has only been applied for?

Thanks
T

[Gaj]

Hi Benz52,

I think the answer should be YES . Indian Govt is simply interested in knowing that you have acquired another nationality and so they need you to surrender your Indian Passports. So you should be able to do it with naturalisation certificate which proves you have acquired British Nationality and have the surrender certificate issued to you. You can apply for PIO or OCI later at your convenience
You only need the British passport only if you are going to travel outside UK.

[Shadow Love]

[quote="AkashS"]Many people shouts about that £90 (or equv to Rs. 7000/-) fees in order to surrender their Indian Passport should they get British or any other country citizenship. They shout that Indian Govt don’t care about their people. How the hell on earth you are “Our Peopleâ€

[ey143]

Does anyone have any experience of trying to cancel their India passport after attaining British citizenship and continuing to travel on the Indian passport not realising that they were breaking the Indian law?

My wife was an Indian student when we married and she attained British citizenship in 2005. Since that time she has visited India at least once per year on her Indian passport. We were not aware that we had to cancel the Indian passport until we recently applied for our OCI and her application was rejected as they told us to obtain a cancellation certificate first then for her to apply for her OCI.

I am concerned now that I have read the penalties and was wondering if anyone else has experienced the same. Im not sure how to handle this now and whether to deal with the HCI in London or claim that we have lost the passport or something or approach the passport office in Bangalore where it was issued?

Thx.

[mama]

Hi
We applied for our surrender certificates on May 22nd and paid a whopping 102£ per person (that's 2 of us). We also got the certificate a few days later.
While applying for the OCI, we realised our elder son who is a PIO card holder has had his passport cancelled but didnt require a surrender cert at that time. So went again to queue up to apply for a surrender certificate and guess what, the fees have gone down to just 14£. While we are glad we saved some money on our son's application, we are absolutely livid that we had to spend extra 88£ per application for us!
They just decide to reduce it overnight??!!
Anyway, I just had to rant about this. Frankly, they must be thinking that all those living and working in the UK are extremely rich. Little do they realise that we are all having to work extremely hard for the money we earn here and save..especially with all the childcare costs that we have to pay as a family. It is ridiculous that they dont care about the fleecing of thousands of people before they reduced the fees to 14£.

[nchowdhury]

Hi,

Can you pls let us know the time you went to surrender your son cancelled PP--- Did they cancelled same day and returned the cancelled PP on spot or you submitted and you received later. If later how many days they took.

Thanks and regards
N. Chowdhury

Hi
We applied for our surrender certificates on May 22nd and paid a whopping 102£ per person (that's 2 of us). We also got the certificate a few days later.
While applying for the OCI, we realised our elder son who is a PIO card holder has had his passport cancelled but didnt require a surrender cert at that time. So went again to queue up to apply for a surrender certificate and guess what, the fees have gone down to just 14£. While we are glad we saved some money on our son's application, we are absolutely livid that we had to spend extra 88£ per application for us!
They just decide to reduce it overnight??!!
Anyway, I just had to rant about this. Frankly, they must be thinking that all those living and working in the UK are extremely rich. Little do they realise that we are all having to work extremely hard for the money we earn here and save..especially with all the childcare costs that we have to pay as a family. It is ridiculous that they dont care about the fleecing of thousands of people before they reduced the fees to 14£.

[mama]

we went in the morning around 9.30 to take the token for surrendering passport. then we received the surrender certificate 4 days later. hope that helps.

[nchowdhury]

Cheers mate,
Thanks and regards
N. Chowdhury

we went in the morning around 9.30 to take the token for surrendering passport. then we received the surrender certificate 4 days later. hope that helps.

[vikasvaish]

I have submit My Indian Passport surrender application to HCI, London by post 5 weeks back and since then I have not heard any thing. I send the E-Mail and Fax to the Passport Section but no replies. I tried to contact them but no body seems to be answering the phone.
What do I Do now.

Shall I wait further or goto HCI, London. Its delaying me to make OCI appliation. And we are planning to travel to India in November.

Please suggest.

[yatri09]

Hello Gaj, I received my SC few months back but HCI kept my passport I would like to have my surrendered passport back. Any advice Please, thanks

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 pursuing this in the High Court at my expense and will keep people updated on this forum. Please make HCI london or whereever that they are not doing a legal thing by retaining the old/surrendered passports.
--Gaj

[nchowdhury]

Hi,

What documents you submitted?
Did you enclosed self addressed (special delivery if possible) with the application?
If not then probably your SC letter might be lying under pile of documents, you got to go and collect as I understand.
They don't even bother what the circumanstances are.

I have submitted my SC apps on 6th July and tracked in royal mail site and showed delivered on 7th July.
I want to go to India on 29th July therefore after receiving the SC letter I have to apply for visa too - finger crossed.

Generally I heard that London HC takes min 2 weeks to send you the letter.

Thanks and regards
N. Chowdhury

I have submit My Indian Passport surrender application to HCI, London by post 5 weeks back and since then I have not heard any thing. I send the E-Mail and Fax to the Passport Section but no replies. I tried to contact them but no body seems to be answering the phone.
What do I Do now.

Shall I wait further or goto HCI, London. Its delaying me to make OCI appliation. And we are planning to travel to India in November.

Please suggest.