I do not wish to go further into this matter, but there were one or two points which were raised by one speaker. The first point was that people who comer back on permits of this description should automatically get back their citizenship and should not be compelled to apply to an officer and await a grant by him of ‘the right of citizenship to them. The point for us to consider is whether in the case of these people it is at all wise or necessary for us to put them on a higher level than people who owned property in Pakistan and have had to give up that property and come here after the 19th July 1948. Though their intention for permanently settling in this country is clear they have to apply to an officer for the purpose of obtaining rights of citizenship. I do not think that people who deliberately migrated from India to Pakistan should be put on a higher level ban those people who were squeezed out of Pakistan out of their properties and had to come here after the 19th July. That is one point which I would like the House to consider. They say that there were cases of a considerable number of people who, on account of statements made by certain persons or supposed notifications issued by people under some authority or other, have returned to this country without obtaining permits and they should not be prejudiced by the fact that they had not obtained these permits. I think, Sir, that so far as people who migrated to Pakistan from India are concerned, there is this definite fact that their first act was one of giving up their allegiance to India and owning their allegiance to a different State. Before we take them back into India and give them rights of citizenship we must have some definite method by which their intention to return to India is unequivocally expressed. Also we must have definite evidence of the fact that they come back to this country which the imprimatur of the Government of this country. And that is why in this article 5AA we have restricted this eligibility for citizenship to persons who have come back to India on permits issued under the authority of a law issued by us and by our own officers.
