2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(1) the citizenship of the petitioner was unsustainable although the petitioner had obtained citizenship on the basis of fraud. 114 Hypothetically, if the argument in this article that art 21 includes the obligation on the state not to make persons stateless applies to the facts of the case, state action depriving citizenship should be tested against procedure established by law. The petitioner was deprived of his citizenship under s 10 of the 1955 Act because he had not revealed in his citizenship application that he had travelled out of the country in the 12 months before the application. Here, the law in place is s 10 of the 1955 Act. The procedure established should be for a legitimate purpose and be proportional. Applying the above test, firstly, it can be inferred that the deprivation of citizenship was to prevent fraud and concealment of facts in obtaining citizenship. Secondly, it is doubtful if deprivation of citizenship is suitable for furthering the goal of prevention of fraud. However, this is not contested since in the case at hand, residence in the country for 12 months before submission of application is a condition for obtaining citizenship by registration under s 5 of the 1955 Act. Thirdly, s 17 of the 1955 Act provides that anyone making any false representation as to a material particular shall be punishable with imprisonment up to five years or with fine up to Rp50,000. Since this is a criminal law measure, it is stringent and may prevent applications made by fraud. However, since a state’s citizenship is given to a person in good faith, it might still be considered a necessary measure. Finally, the question is if the result of statelessness on account of citizenship deprivation has a disproportionate effect on the petitioner. Here, the purpose is to prevent fraud in obtaining citizenship of the country. On the other hand, it is the petitioner’s right to have rights that is in the balance. With a loss of nationality, a person does not have any ‘place in the world’ and does not enjoy a dignified life. They will be exposed to human rights violations and not have access to civil, political and socio-economic rights that are available to all citizens. Their status is unresolved and they remain expelled from humanity. This is a disproportionate effect compared to the purpose for which the measure is in place. In fact, the Court in Ramesh Chennamaneni also noted the serious consequences of statelessness in deciding that despite the fraud the petitioner should not be deprived of his citizenship. This is also why the UN SecretaryGeneral notes that it is difficult to justify a deprivation of citizenship that results in statelessness on the ground of proportionality. 115 This is because of the serious effects of statelessness discussed at the beginning of this section. V ‘LIFE’, THE OBLIGATION NOT TO RENDER PERSONS STATELESS AND THE NRC Having established that ‘life’ under art 21 of the Constitution should include an obligation on the Indian state not to render persons stateless, what is examined now is how the state should comply with this obligation in the exercise of updating the NRC that the Government of India has undertaken in Assam. In 2015, the Supreme Court ordered the central and state governments to conduct the exercise of updating the NRC in Assam to determine who holds Indian 114 Ramesh Chennamaneni (n 100) [48]–[50]. 115 UN Doc A/HRC/25/28 (n 44). 202