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About 70,000 Indian citizens surrendered their passports between 2011 and 2022 at regional passport offices (RPOs) across the country, The Indian Express (IE) has reported. Among these, more than 90 per cent of the passports were from just eight states – Goa, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Chandigarh.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) replied to a Right to Information (RTI) filed by the newspaper. It informed that more than 40 per cent of the total surrendered passports (69,303) were from the state of Goa and accounted for over 28,000 passports.
Notably, the number of passports surrendered is only a fraction of the number of citizens who renounced Indian nationality during this period. On March 24, the minister of state for external affairs, V Muraleedharan, informed that more than 1.6 million Indians renounced their citizenship, the report said.
Moreover, the details provided in the RTI response only included the passports surrendered at RPOs and did not take into account the ones surrendered at Indian embassies and High Commissions abroad, the IE report added.
The data was only shared after an order from the Central Information Commission on a second appeal.
Where does the law stand on Indian citizenship?
According to The Indian Citizenship Act, 1955, Persons of Indian Origin are not allowed to have dual citizenship. If an individual holding an Indian passport acquires a passport from another country, they must surrender their Indian passport.
After Goa, Punjab stood second on the list of the most passports surrendered. The report added that 9,557 passports were surrendered at the RPOs in Amritsar, Jalandhar, and Chandigarh.
Goa has been the top state in surrendering passports, only falling behind in 2012 and 2013 when Gujarat topped the list.
A year-wise analysis of the number of passports surrendered reveals that only 239 were surrendered in 2011, but the numbers shot up to 11,492 in 2012 and 23,511 in 2013,