Centre to revoke Aatish Taseer's OCI card

New Delhi [India], Nov 7 (ANI): The Centre on Thursday announced that it will revoke the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card of author and journalist Aatish Taseer on grounds of him having concealed information in his PIO application and failing to dispute a notice sent to him by the government in this regard.
In a series of tweets, Home Affairs Ministry spokesperson refuted a media report claiming that the government is considering revoking the New-York based journalist's OCI card over his article in Time magazine criticising the Narendra Modi government.
The spokesperson said that Taseer concealed in his Person of Indian Origin application the fact that his late father was of Pakistani origin, and failed to dispute the notice sent to him in this regard, thereby making him ineligible to to hold an OCI card, as per the Citizenship Act, 1955.
"Govt. considers revoking Author Aatish Ali Tasser's OCI card after his Time article..", as reported by ThePrint, is a complete misrepresentation and is devoid of any facts," a tweet read.

"Mr. Aatish Ali Taseer, while submitting his PIO application, concealed the fact that his late father was of Pakistani origin. Mr. Taseer was given the opportunity to submit his reply/objections regarding his PIO/OCI cards, but he failed to dispute the notice," the following tweets read.
"Thus, Mr. Aatish Ali Taseer becomes ineligible to hold an OCI card, as per the Citizenship Act, 1955. He has clearly not complied with very basic requirements and hidden information," the spokesperson went on to say.



Meanwhile, Taseer has denied the spokesperson's assertions and tweeted an image of an email of Consul General Sandeep Chakravorty acknowledging his response to the objections by the government.
"This is untrue. Here is the Consul General's acknowledgment of my reply. I was given not the full 21 days, but rather 24 hours to reply. I've heard nothing from the ministry since," Taseer tweeted.

The image accompanying the text reads Consul General responding to Taseer's email as: "This is to acknowledge the receipt of your response. We have forwarded your response to the concerned authorities." (ANI)