The first thing that I would take up is. the question of persons who migrated from India to Pakistan and subsequently changed their mind and applied for coming back to India, to their own old homes and lands,-whether in cases of that description, they should be treated on the same, footing as persons who have merely migrated from Pakistan to India. The general class of people who migrated from Pakistan to India, particularly in or about the time of the Partition were people who had their permanent homes originally in Pakistan and were squeezed out of their homes and had to find their permanent homes in India. With reference to that class, the draft article 5A provides that, if their migration from Pakistan to India took place before the 19th July, 1948, provided they had resided continuously from the time at which they migrated to India, in India,, then they will automatically be regarded as citizens of India. In the case of such persons who migrated from Pakistan to India after the enactment of the Ordinance relating to the issue of permits for influx from Pakistan to India, in the case of those persons, we have restricted the acquisition of citizenship only to a small category which would come under the description that they applied for and obtained from the authorities of the Government of India permits enabling them permanently to return to India and resettle there. In the case of these persons, they will not be automatically registered as citizens. They have to make applications to authorities who will be designated for the purpose, and those authorities will take the full history of each of these persons into consideration before they grant a recognition of citizenship.
