TN: HC okays entry permit to Nalani's daughter

Chennai, Mar 7: The Madras High Court today directed the Union Government to issue an entry permit within four weeks to Megara, daughter of Nalini, a life convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, to enable her to come to India.

A Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Mr Justice K Chandru, gave the above directive while allowing an appeal filed by Nalini, seeking a direction to the Centre to permit her daughter to come to India.

In its order, the bench said under section 9(2) of Citizenship Act, 1955, the appellant's (Nalini) daughter, as a citizen of India, was entitled to enter this country.

Accordingly, ''we direct the Union Government to issue the entry permit within a period of four weeks to the appellant's daughter to enable her to come to India.'' It would be open for the Centre to decide the issue of cessation of citizenship in accordance with the provisions of Sec 9(2) of Citizenship Act and in the light of various decisions of the Supreme Court, the bench added.

Megara, born in a prison here in 1992, was taken to Sri Lanka by her grandmother as a child after both her parents were awarded death sentence in the high-profile assassination case. However, the capital punishment was subsequently commuted to life sentence for Nalini.

Nalini had been waging a long legal battle to get the Centre's entry permit for her daughter to enable her pursue studies in India.

UNI