Section 5(1)(c) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 provides that a person who is married to a citizen of India and is ordinarily resident in India for a period of seven years before making an application is eligible to apply for citizenship by registration. The provision lays down two distinct conditions: first, that the applicant must be married to an Indian citizen, and second, that the applicant must have been ordinarily resident in India for seven years prior to the date of application. The statute does not state, either expressly or by implication, that the seven-year period of residence must be counted only after marriage. The words “before making an application” qualify the period of residence, not the marital relationship.
On a plain and settled interpretation of the statute, lawful residence in India prior to marriage is fully includable for computing the seven-year requirement, provided such residence was legal, continuous in the sense of ordinary residence, and not casual or unlawful. Any interpretation that restricts the seven-year period to post-marriage residence effectively adds words to the statute that Parliament did not enact, which executive authorities are not permitted to do.
The police verification report you have quoted proceeds on the assumption that the seven-year period begins only after marriage. This approach is legally flawed. It conflates the condition of eligibility to apply (being married to an Indian citizen at the time of application) with the separate qualifying requirement of residence. The law requires that you be married at the time of application; it does not require that the entire qualifying period of residence must be as a spouse of an Indian citizen. Such an interpretation is ultra vires the Act and contrary to settled principles of statutory construction.
The expression “ordinarily resident” has been consistently interpreted by Indian courts to mean lawful residence with continuity and an intention to stay, and it is not dependent on the category of visa or marital status. Residence on a student visa, entry visa, or other lawful visa counts towards ordinary residence so long as it is legal and bona fide. On your own facts, you have been lawfully residing in India since 2013 on valid visas, with continuous presence, followed by marriage in 2023 and application for citizenship in 2025. This gives you well over seven years of lawful ordinary residence before the date of application, satisfying the statutory requirement many times over.
While there is no Supreme Court judgment dealing exclusively with Section 5(1)(c), courts dealing with citizenship, domicile, and similar qualifying statutes have consistently held that periods of residence accrued before acquisition of a particular status can be counted unless the statute expressly prohibits it. There is also no notification, rule, or circular issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs stating that the seven-year period must be post-marriage. In practice, MHA has, in numerous cases, accepted pre-marriage lawful residence for applications under Section 5(1)(c). Errors of the kind reflected in your case usually arise at the level of local police verification or state authorities due to template-based or mechanical understanding of the provision.
What has gone wrong in your case is therefore not a substantive ineligibility but a jurisdictional and legal error in the police report. The officer has applied a condition that does not exist in law. Such an error is rectifiable at the administrative level and, if necessary, through judicial review.
The appropriate course is first to submit a detailed representation to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Citizenship Division, enclosing your complete visa history from 2013 onwards, FRRO records, marriage certificate, a copy of the police verification report, and a short legal note explaining the correct interpretation of Section 5(1)(c). The MHA has the authority to disregard or override an incorrect police interpretation and decide the application on the basis of law. You may also seek correction or clarification of the police report or request fresh verification based on the correct legal position.
If, despite this, the application is rejected or adversely affected on the same erroneous ground, a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution before the jurisdictional High Court would be maintainable. The grounds would include misinterpretation of the statute, addition of conditions not prescribed by law, arbitrariness, and violation of Articles 14 and 21. High Courts have consistently intervened in cases where executive authorities impose extra-statutory conditions in citizenship and residency matters.
To answer your questions directly: the seven-year residency requirement under Section 5(1)(c) includes lawful residence prior to marriage; it is not confined to post-marriage residence. There is no statutory provision, rule, or notification to the contrary, and administrative practice and judicial principles support inclusion of pre-marriage ordinary residence. On the facts stated by you, you satisfy the residency requirement, and the adverse police interpretation is legally unsustainable.
In essence, your understanding of the law is correct, the police report is erroneous, and this is a curable administrative mistake rather than a substantive bar to your citizenship application.
