Sweden-based NRI professor moves Delhi HC against cancellation of his OCI card: The Tribune India
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 8
The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the Center to respond to a petition filed by Sweden-based professor of Indian origin Ashok Swain against the government’s decision to cancel his Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card.
Justice Prathiba M Singh issued a notice to the Center on the petition filed by Swain, professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Asking the Center to respond to Swain’s plea in four weeks, the HC posted the matter for further hearing in February 2023.
Swain said that pursuant to a notice issued in 2020, his OIC card was arbitrarily suspended in February 2022 due to the allegations that he engaged in inflammatory speeches and anti-Indian activities.
He claimed that he did not make any inflammatory speech. There was no specific incident or material to suggest that he engaged in any anti-Indian activities.
As a professor, his role was to discuss government policy through his work, he said. Being a critic of some of the policies of the present government should not be tantamount to anti-Indian activities under the Citizenship Act, 1955, he argued.