The Rajasthan High Court on Thursday expressed anger over the state government’s failure to submit details of pending citizenship cases of Pakistani Hindus, and as a resulted directed it to submit a report in the next hearing. Failing which, the court ordered the home secretary to be present before it to explain the reason why, a progress report could not be tabled.
The High Court had stepped in the matter by taking a suo moto cognisance of the large number of pending citizenship and visa cases of migrants. As a result It had asked for the details of number of Hindu migrants who have till date not got a citizenship despite being eligible for it.
When questioned about the failure to submit the details, the Additional Advocate General (AAG) K L Thakur, blamed the CID for neither providing the pending citizenship figures, nor providing the figure of total migrants living in the state.
The division bench headed by justice Sangeet Lodha termed the government’s lack of knowledge as “shocking”.
The amicus curiae who is arguing on the issue also blamed the CID by alleging that, it was not clearing cases pertaining to citizenship and short, long term visas.
The ‘dubious’ functioning of the CID in regards to this matter has also been documented in the past.
We had reported how Nine Pakistani Hindus were deported to Pakistan, even as the Rajasthan High Court had put a stay on it. The petitioners which included a 73 year old woman had asked for a stay on their deportation, but before the court order could reach the concerned authorities, they had entered Pakistan territory.
Supposedly it was the CID which had spearheaded the deportation process as its officials had given the Hindu family an ultimatum to go back to Pakistan.
In a stark contrast to this, the governments of Chhattisgarh and Gujarat have been very proactive in providing citizenship to migrant Hindus.
Just this October, the Rama Singh led Chhattisgarh government had helped provide citizenship to 60 Pakistani Hindus, and promised to further aid 600-700 such Hindus in the near future. Even in Gujarat, more than 100 Hindus got Indian citizenship thanks to the Narendra Modi government at the Centre simplifying rules for Pakistani Hindus in exile.
