Bombay High Court grants passport relief to Uganda-born senior citizen living in Goa

“Considering the mandate of the Citizenship Order, the Petitioner’s mother was born in Goa and so were both his grandparents as recorded in the Marriage Certificate of the Petitioner’s parents. The petitioner was born in Tororo, Uganda, but to grandparents and a mother who were born in India. Obviously therefore, the petitioner’s citizenship is from India and no other nation,” the August 19 order read.

The authorities, represented by advocate Somnath Karpe, supported the order, mainly on the ground that the man had not produced any proof that either of his parents was born in Goa, and the material placed before the authorities suggested that he was born in Uganda and was not entitled to hold an Indian passport, as his citizenship has not been proved.

The man, whose address is mentioned in court records as South Goa,  was represented by Senior Advocate C A Coutinho along with advocate Ivan Santimano.

Justices Valmiki Menezes and Amit S Jamsandekar held that the passport officer had passed the rejection order earlier in the absence of sufficient proof of his citizenship.

‘Birth certificate authentic’

Referring to the marriage certificate, the court noted that the man’s paternal grandparents are recorded as natives of Goa. It was also found that the man’s father was aged 25 and mother was aged 21 on the date of registration of the marriage, and they were both born in Goa, before December 1961, which is the date when Goa was annexed to the Indian Union.

Regarding the man’s birth certificate, the court found that it recorded his full name and the names of his parents, where his father is stated to be “Portuguese”, and his mother “Indian”.

“Obviously from this document, considering that the parents were residents of Uganda as on the date of Goa’s liberation, the father was considered Portuguese, though the Marriage Certificate clearly records that Petitioner’s grandfather was a native of Quela (Kavlem), in Ponda Taluka, Goa and Petitioner’s father was born in Uganda but was a resident of Perish of Taligao in Goa as on April 22, 1956 which is prior to the liberation,” it noted.

The court held the birth certificate as an authentic document after noting that the Indian High Commission at Kampala, Uganda and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uganda record and confirm the birth registration of the man who was born in Tororo, Uganda, in May 1964.

The high court also noted that the man had produced correspondence between the Indian High Commission at Kampala and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uganda confirming his birth registration in Tororo, Uganda, on May 3, 1964. The court held that this correspondence authenticated his Ugandan birth certificate and, therefore, the birth certificate had to be considered an “authentic document”.

The court further noted that under the Goa, Daman and Diu (Citizenship) Order, 1962, every person who, or whose parent or grandparent, was born before December 20, 1961 in the territory of Goa was deemed to have become an Indian citizen on that day. It found that the man’s mother and both grandparents were born in Goa.

2025 order set aside

Noting that the man had not produced his parents’ marriage certificate before the passport officer when his application was considered, the court held that the officer had passed the order in the absence of sufficient proof of his citizenship. It, therefore, set aside the May 7, 2025 order and directed the man to submit a fresh passport application along with all the documents within one week.

The passport officer was directed to consider the documents and pass an order within three weeks, without being influenced by the earlier order and after considering the Bombay High Court’s observations on the question of citizenship.