KOCHI: Kerala high court has ruled that Pakistan-born people seeking Indian citizenship cannot bypass the mandatory requirement of renouncing their Pakistani nationality.A division bench of Justices Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and VM Syam Kumar overturned recently a single-judge order that had directed Union govt to grant citizenship to two women living in Thalassery of Kerala’s Kannur district. The bench allowed an appeal filed by Union govt, holding that a renunciation certificate from Pakistan is indispensable and cannot be replaced by other documents.“The Citizenship Act, 1955, does not recognise dual citizenship,” the court said. “An individual can be treated as an Indian citizen only if recognised exclusively by the Indian state, without competing claims from any other country.”The case dates back to 2008 when the women’s father Muhamed Maroof returned to India from Pakistan with govt permission. Maroof, born in Kannur’s Kottayam-Malabar village, had moved to Pakistan in 1977 with his grandmother before working in UAE. His daughters were born in Pakistan and later shifted with the family to Thalassery.The sisters applied for Indian citizenship, producing an NoC from Pakistan high commission instead of a renunciation certificate. They said under Pakistan’s citizenship law, renunciation papers can only be issued after turning 21, and by then they had already surrendered their Pakistani passports. The single bench accepted this plea.The division bench disagreed, ruling that both minors and adults must formally renounce foreign citizenship to qualify. “Unless Pakistani citizenship is renounced under Section 14A of the Pakistan Citizenship Act, 1951, Indian citizenship cannot be claimed,” the court said. The order leaves the petitioners legally Pakistani citizens in the eyes of both countries.