STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH Vs. PEER MOHD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A charge-sheet was presented by the appellant-the State of Madhya Pradesh against the respondents Peer Mohammad and his wife Mst. Khatoon under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act, 1946 (hereinafter called the Act) read with clause 7 of the Foreigners Order, 1948 (hereinafter called the Order) in the Court of the Magistrate 1st Class, Burhanpur. The case against the respondents was that they had entered India on May 13, 1956, on the strength of a Pakistani passport and a visa issued in their favour on May 8, 1956 and reached Burhanpur on May 15, 1956. Even after the period of the visa had expired, they continued to stay in India. Consequently, the District Magistrate, Burhanpur, served a notice on them on May 14, 1957 calling upon them to leave India on or before May 28, 1957. The respondents did not comply with the notice and by their unauthorised and illegal overstay in India, they rendered themselves liable under Section 14 of the Act and clause 7 of the Order.

(2.) The respondents pleaded that they were not foreigners but were citizens of India. They were born in India at Burhanpur and had been permanent residents of the said place; and so, the present criminal proceedings instituted against them were misconceived.

(3.) The prosecution, however, urged that the respondents had left India for Pakistan sometime after January 26, 1950, and under Art. 7 of the Constitution they cannot be deemed to be citizens of India. In the alternative, it was urged that since the respondents had obtained a Pakistani passport, they have acquired the citizenship of a foreign country and that has terminated their citizenship of India under Section 9 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 (No. LVII of 1955). It appears that before the learned Magistrate, only this latter plea was pressed and the learned Magistrate held that the question as to whether the respondents had lost their citizenship of India under Section 9(2) of the Citizenship Act has to be decided by the Central Government and cannot be agitated in a court of law. Therefore, the learned Magistrate passed an order under Section 249 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, directing that the respondents should be released, and the passport seized from them should be returned to them after the period of appeal, if any.