194 SOCIO-LEGAL REVIEW VOL. 17 B. Role of courts in extending Indian citizenship for Sri Lankan Tamil refugees Rulings by Indian courts on citizenship issues of Camp-Refugees and stateless persons are a mixed bag. However, the role of courts is of paramount importance in charting paths to inclusive citizenship generally, and specifically for Camp-Refugees because the State has unfettered discretion in dealing with these groups under present law.275 First, in Sasikumar,276 the Madras High Court (“HC”) held that a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee born in India was a citizen under the 1955 Act since they were born in India on March 10, 1987.277 In a similar vein, the noteworthy Namgyal Dolkar decision held that children of Tibetan refugees born in India after January 26, 1950, and before July 1, 1987, are Indian citizens by birth.278 Although these decisions seem like a stride forward for stateless persons’ citizenship in India by the court’s reading, a close reading of Section 3 reveals that the petitioners in Sasikumar and Namgyal Dolkar were eligible for citizenship by the simple fact of their birth in India. The courts in both cases were tasked with interpreting textbook illustrations of Section 3(1)(a), under which all persons irrespective of all other factors (like the citizenship status of their parents, religion of the applicant) are Indian citizens if they are born in India’s territory after January 26, 1950, and before July 1, 1987.279 Section 3 only complicates requirements for persons born after July 1, 1987, by looking into one As in Part III (a). M Sasikumar v State of TN (2009) 5 Mad LJ 167. 277 1955 Act, s 3 (1) (a). 278 Namgyal Dolkar v Govt of India, Ministry of External Affairs 2010 SCC OnLine Del 4548 : (2010) 12 DRJ 749; this stance has been followed by other HCs as well as in Tibetan Review, ‘Third High Court in fourth case upholds Tibetans’ Indian citizenship status’ (15 March 2017) <https://www.tibetanreview.net/third-high-court-in-fourth-case-upholds-tibetans-indian-citizenship-status/>; Namgyal Dolkar also received executive recognition in 2017 when the government allowed applications from Tibetan refugees born in India after January 26, 1950, and before July 1, 1987, for Indian citizenship as in Phuntsok Wangyal v Ministry of External Affairs 2016 SCC OnLine Del 5344 and Tenzin Passang v Union of India 2017 SCC OnLine Del 12865 : (2017) 240 DLT 649; however, despite allowance for applications from Tibetan refugees, the bureaucratic procedure was quite technical. Tibetan applicants had to abide by certain conditions, including a prohibition on returning to original refugee settlements and renouncing certain benefits in writing. These conditions discouraged many Tibetans from applying because they wished to visit refugee settlements or could not afford to relinquish governmental benefits. For instance, one refugee had to support her parents financially and could not afford to live outside the refugee settlement. These executive impediments show that court rulings by themselves are not sufficient for refugees to attain citizenship as in Abhinav Seetharaman, ‘Tibetan refugees in India: The challenges of applying for Indian citizenship’ [2020] 54 Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines <http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ ret/pdf/ret_54_05.pdf> accessed 28 July 2021. 279 1955 Act, s 3 275 276