1. (l) This Act may be called the 1[* * *] Citizenship Act, 1951.

2. In this Act-

“alien” means a person who is not a citizen of Bangladesh or a Commonwealth citizen;

“Indo-Pakistan sub-continent” means India as defined in the Government of India Act, 1935, as originally enacted;

“minor” means, notwithstanding anything in the Majority Act, 1875, any person who has not completed the age of twenty-one years;

“prescribed” means prescribed by rules made under this Act;

“Commonwealth citizen” means a person who has the status of a Commonwealth citizen under the British Nationality Act, 1948;

“British protected person” means a person who has the status of a British protected person for the purposes of the British Nationality Act, 1948.

3. At the commencement of this Act every person shall be deemed to be a citizen of Bangladesh-

(a) who or any of whose parents or grandparents was born in the territory now included in Bangladesh and who after the fourteenth day of August, 1947, has not been permanently resident in any country outside Bangladesh; or

(b) who or any of whose parents or grandparents was born in the territories included in India on the thirty-first day of March, 1937, and who, except in the case of a person who was in the service of Bangladesh or of any Government or Administration in Bangladesh at the commencement of this Act, has or had his domicile within the meaning of Part II of the Succession Act, 1925, as in force at the commencement of this Act, in Bangladesh or in the territories now included in Bangladesh; or

(c) who is a person naturalised as a British subject in Bangladesh; and who, if before the date of the commencement of this Act he has acquired the citizenship of any foreign State, has before that date renounced the same by depositing a declaration in writing to that effect with an authority appointed or empowered to receive it; or

(d) who before the commencement of this Act migrated to the territories now included in Bangladesh from any territory in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent outside those territories with the intension of residing permanently in those territories.

4. Every person born in Bangladesh after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of Bangladesh by birth:

Provided that a person shall not be such a citizen by virtue of this section if at the time of his birth-

(a) his father possesses such immunity from suit and legal process as is accorded to an envoy of an external sovereign power accredited in Bangladesh and is not a citizen of Bangladesh ; or

(b) his father is an enemy alien and the birth occurs in a place then under occupation by the enemy.

5. Subject to the provisions of section 3 a person born after the commencement of this Act, shall be a citizen of Bangladesh by descent if his 1[father or mother] is a citizen of Bangladesh at the time of his birth:

6. (1) The Government may, upon his obtaining a certificate of domicile under this Act, register as a citizen of Bangladesh by migration any person who after the commencement of this Act and before the first day of January, 1952, has migrated to the territories now included in Bangladesh from any territory in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent outside those territories, with the intention of residing permanently in those territories:

7. Notwithstanding anything in sections 3, 4 and 6, a person who has after the first day of March, 1947, migrated from the territories now included in Bangladesh to the territories now included in India shall not be a citizen of Bangladesh under the provisions of these sections:

Provided that nothing in this section shall apply to a person who, after having so migrated to the territories now included in India has returned to the territories now included in Bangladesh under a permit for resettlement or permanent return issued by or under the authority of any law for the time being in force.

8. The Government may, upon application made to it in this behalf, register as a citizen of Bangladesh any person who, or whose father or whose father's father, was born in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent and who is ordinarily resident in a country outside Bangladesh at the commencement of this Act, if he has, unless exempted by the Government in this behalf, obtained a certificate of domicile:

Provided that a certificate of domicile shall not be required in the case of any such person who is out of Bangladesh under the protection of a Bangladesh passport, or in the case of any such person whose father or whose father's father is at the commencement of this Act residing in Bangladesh or becomes, before the aforesaid application is made, a citizen of Bangladesh.

9. The Government may, upon an application made to it in that behalf by any person who has been granted a certificate of naturalisation under the Naturalisation Act, 1926, register that person as a citizen of Bangladesh by naturalisation:

10. (1) Any woman who by reason of her marriage to a British subject before the first day of January, 1949, has acquired the status of a British subject shall, if her husband becomes a citizen of Bangladesh, be a citizen of Bangladesh.

11. (l) The Government may, upon, application to it in this behalf made in the prescribed manner by a parent or guardian of a minor child of a citizen of Bangladesh, register the child as a citizen of Bangladesh.

(2) The Government may, in such circumstances as it thinks fit, register any minor as a citizen of Bangladesh.

12. Any person registered as a citizen of Bangladesh shall be such a citizen from the date of his registration.

13. If any territory becomes a part of Bangladesh the President may, by order, specify the persons who shall be citizens of Bangladesh by reason of their connection with that territory; and those persons shall be citizens of Bangladesh from such date and upon such conditions, if any, as may be specified in the order.

21. Any person who in order to obtain or prevent the doing of anything under the Act makes any statement or furnishes any information which is false in any material particular and which he knows or has reasonable cause to believe to be false, or does not believe to be true, shall be deemed to have committed an offence punishable under section 177 of the 1[* * *] Penal Code.

22. (l) For the purposes of this Act a person born aboard a registered ship or aircraft, or aboard an unregistered ship or aircraft of the Government of any country shall be deemed to have been born in the place in which the ship or aircraft was registered or as the case may be in that country.

(2) Any reference in this Act to the status or description of the father of a person at the time of that person's birth shall, in relation to a person born after the death of his father be construed as a reference to the status or description of the father at the time of the father's death; and where that death occurred before, and the birth occurs after the commencement of this Act, the status or description which would have been applicable to the father had he died after the commencement of this Act shall be deemed to be the status or description applicable to him at the time of his death.

23. (1) The Government may frame rules for carrying into effect the provisions of this Act.

(2) No rule framed under this Act shall have effect unless published in the official Gazette.