Sir, this article 5 which relates to the definition of citizenship has had rather a chequered history. The Drafting Committee has placed before us for our consideration various drafts from time to time, each draft being supposed to be an improvement on the previous one, but every time that it came before us for scrutiny and consideration, it was found to be defective and not comprehensive enough, and, therefore, it had to be sent back to the Drafting Committee for being recast and improved upon. Even during this Session one amendment after another has been pouring in from the Drafting Committee until we have before us the Draft as has been moved by Dr. Ambedkar yesterday. Let us see whether even this Draft is satisfactory enough. I am afraid even this is not satisfactory and is not comprehensive enough. First of all, we find that it confines itself to defining Citizenship at the date of commencement of this Constitution and makes no provision for the acquisition of the right of citizenship subsequent to that date. Of course under article 5 (c) the right acquired on the citizens even thereafter, but with all that it makes no provision for acquisition of the right of citizenship subsequent to that date. It has been conveniently left over to be dealt with by Parliament. Now, the date of commencement of the Constitution is going to be under the schedule which has been thought of at present as 26th January, 1950. So it means that 26th January 1950 is going to be the deadline by which the right of citizenship should be acquired and no provision has been made for the acquiring of this right subsequent to the midnight of 26th January 1950. I consider this to be rather a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. I can quite appreciate the view that it may not be very easy today to make an exhaustive definition of citizenship. It may not be possible to envisage at this stage as to what possible qualifications should be provided for the acquisition of the right of citizenship, and it should be left to Parliament to make a very comprehensive definition of citizenship; but I see no reason why we should not make an attempt, when it is easy enough – according to me – to provide for acquisition of this right during the period intervening between the date of commencement of this Constitution and the date on which the Parliament may enact any new Law on the subject. Is it not very unsatisfactory that we should make no provision for all those persons who may be born after midnight of 26th January 1950, and should we not make any provision for acquisition of the right by those who may have been domiciled in this country and some time after January 1950 may be completing the period of five years of residence? That seems to be an obvious lacuna. Lacs of persons would continue to be considered as non-citizens of this country between the date of commencement of this Constitution and the date when the new law will be made Parliament, and the brunt of this difficulty will be felt even by several members of this House who have been recently married including even Honourable Ministers who may have children born immediately after 26th January 1950 and who will find themselves in the very unhappy and uncomfortable position of being parents of children who are not citizens of this country. The anomaly of the position becomes more funny when we find this in article 5-B–the relevant portion runs thus :
“He shall be deemed to be a citizen of India if he has been registered as a citizen of India by the diplomatic or consular representative of India in the country where he is for the time being residing on an application made by him therefore to such diplomatic or consular representative, whether before or after the commencement of this Constitution.”