A Tibetan refugee has moved Delhi High Court, seeking Indian passport in recognition of ‘citizenship by birth’ as provisioned under the Citizenship Act.
Born in Dharmshala in 1966, Yangchen Drakmargyapon, remained “stranded” in Switzerland since 2014. Yangchen and her two adult children were “without travel documents or passports since 2014,” her petition claims.
With no valid travel documents till date, “effectively making her stateless”, she wants to return to India to be with her extended family, and bring back the ashes of her husband here, as he always wanted, her petition says.
In 2023, the Swiss authorities rejected Yangchen’s application to be recognised as a stateless person, on the ground that the “Indian legislation allow each of the interested parties i.e., the petitioner and her children to be considered as Indian nationals”.
While she was issued an Indian Citizenship (IC) certificate, a certificate of Identity issued by the Delhi’s passport office to Tibetan refugees in India upon recommendation by the Bureau of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, it expired subsequently.
Yangchen first came to Switzerland in 1997, with her then two-year-old son, to reunite with her husband, Ngawang Choephel, who had previously entered Switzerland from India.
Yangchen said Choephel served “the Tibetan Government in exile in Dharamsala and the Tibet Office in Geneva.” “This work led the Government of the People’s Republic of China to perceive him…as separatists. Ngawang fled China…seeking refuge in Nepal and later settling in India… the entire family lived in exile in India before resettling in Switzerland.”
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In July 2009, Swiss authorities issued her family a foreign passport valid until July 1, 2014. However, the authorities rejected the family’s application for renewal of the passport, stating that it was “reasonable to require Ngawang to take steps with the competent authority of his country of origin to obtain a national passport”. However, Ngawang as a Tibetan refugee was stateless since fleeing Tibet in 1959 and his attempts to obtain a travel document through India were unsuccessful due to changes in policy and his lack of residence in India.
As they remained stateless, the Swiss federal authority of State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), in 2021, suggested to Yangchen to get a national passport or a travel document from India, as she was born in India in 1966. In 2021, she applied for the renewal of her family’s identity certificates which was rejected.
Ngawang died in 2022 and Yangchen moved the Delhi HC in November 2024, seeking Indian citizenship. She has told the court, through her advocate Sanjay Vashishtha they remain stranded in Switzerland and were “unable to… travel to India and deposit the ashes of Mr Ngawang Choephel”.
While the Delhi HC had issued notice to the Indian authorities on November 27, 2024, a counter-affidavit was been filed till date. On April 7, Justice Sachin Datta orally instructed the respondents to take instructions on the petitioner’s contentions by the next date of hearing.
The next court hearing is due on May 7.