The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the Delhi Government to release Pakistani woman Nuzhat Jahan, who is currently lodged at the beggars’ home in Nirmal Chhaya complex. Noting that she must be with her family on Eid, the High Court also asked the Centre to process her citizenship application within the next three months.
“We direct the release of the petitioner (Nuzhat), considering the fact that the important festival ‘Eid’ is around the corner so that she can celebrate such a pious festival with her family members,” said a division bench of Justices Kailash Gambhir and Indermeet Kaur on the petition filed by the Pakistani national struggling to get Indian citizenship for the last 17 years.
“It would be too asperous on our part to confine the petitioner in isolation, away from her husband, children and even grandchildren, in the Beggars’ Home on the joyous and much awaited feast of Eid,” the judges said, while restraining them from leaving the country without permission from the DCP, Crime Branch of Delhi Police.
The directions came after Nuzhat’s husband, on Monday, approached the court against detention of Nuzhat and indecisiveness on the part of the Government regarding her citizenship application. According to the petitioner, Nuzhat, who has been residing in the national Capital since her marriage to an Indian citizen in 1983, kept getting her passport renewed regularly till 1996 and then applied for Indian citizenship as per the instruction of Pakistan authorities. Her application of citizenship has been pending with the Delhi Government ever since.
Nuzhat was convicted under Foreigners Act 1946, in May this year by a lower court and sentenced to a week’s jail. Thereafter, she was sent to Beggars’ Home Nirmal Chhaya where she had been living away from her family till now.