Prevent kid's exile to Yemen: Woman
She moved HC as estranged spouse refused to sign minor daughter's form.
Mumbai: A city-based divorced woman has approached the Bombay high court to save her eight-year-old daughter from being deported to Yemen as her estranged Yemeni husband allegedly refused to sign their daughter’s form and the Foreign Regional Registration Office has refused to grant ‘Overseas Citizen of India’ (OCI) card to the minor child in absence of divorce papers.
The petitioner’s lawyer, Shoeb Shaikh, said while hearing the petition on Wednesday the division bench headed by Justice B.R. Gavai asked the state government as well as the Foreign Regional Registration (FRR) office’s OCI cell to file an affidavit on the status of the application made by the woman seeking to convert her daughter’s ‘Person of Indian Origin’ (PIO) card into OCI card.
The Indian government through a notification had asked all persons having PIO to convert it into OCI by September 30, 2018. However, the court has granted interim relief to the petitioner pending disposal of her petition.
Certain documents are required by the OCI office to convert the PIO into OCI and in the petitioner’s case, she needs to file either documents signed by her husband or divorce papers to prove she is the legal guardian of the child.
According to Mr Shaikh, the petitioner got married to a Yemeni national in 2009 and a child was born out of the wedlock in 2010 in Yemen. Due to alleged harassment by the husband, the petitioner came back to her parent’s house in Mumbai in 2011.
The husband divorced her in 2012 through Facebook. Though petitioner’s family tried to save the marriage but they failed and the husband refused to come to India so the petitioner got her marriage dissolved through Darul Qaza in Mumbai.
However, the OCI the office does not accept documents of Darul Qaza and demanded divorce papers from a competent court, which the petitioner didn’t have nor her husband is responding to her e-mails to sign required documents.
Since the deadline September 30, 2018, of acquiring OCI got over and failing to do so would result in her minor daughter’s deportation to Yemen the woman approached the HC that granted her interim relief till further orders.