Indian women petition SHC for Pakistani citizenship

Shehnaz and Shahana are currently married to Pakistani citizens

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) questioned on Wednesday the maintainability of a petition filed by two Indian women seeking Pakistani citizenship.

A division bench, headed by Justice Ahmed Ali M Sheikh, fixed the hearing on June 14 to hear arguments from the women's lawyer as to how the high court can order the government to award citizenship to the foreign nationals.



The matter was taken up in the court on a petition jointly filed by Shehnaz, her daughter Shahana and others. They cited the interior ministry and others as respondents. The petitioner said she came to Pakistan with her husband, Haji Muhammad, and their daughter in 2008. Her husband died two years later and she married to another Pakistani, Tariq Hussain. Her daughter also married a Pakistani national, Muhammad Rafiq.

Their lawyer, Muhammad Naseeruddin, informed the judges that both the women applied to the interior ministry for Pakistani citizenship but the ministry refused to do so. He sought a direction for the authorities concerned to grant citizenship to the mother and daughter.



The bench members remarked that any foreigner whose visa expires must go back to their own country. They added that it has become a practice for foreigners to come to the country where they solemnise their marriages and get citizenship overnight. They questioned the maintainability of the petition and asked the petitioners' lawyer to satisfy the court.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2016.