Residents' permits

MoritzK

Hey everyone, I left and came back into India without a problem - no one even wanted to see my Resident's Permit.

Thanks for all your help!

__________________
Tham Dee Dai Dee - Do Good and You Will Receive Good

4gotoIndia

I'm wondering if there has been a recent change in policy on this?

We're here on 1 yr research visas, and have residents permits. When we left for a holiday (MAy09) we were asked for our residents permits and only had photocopies. He stamped the back and we were 'ticked off' for not having the originals. When we returned (both times thro' Chennai) we were again asked for the permits.

We are now about to leave for good - a few days before our visas run out. We're wondering whether we really need to go to the FRRO, or whether we assume that at worst we'll get another ticking off?

Anyone any idea?
thanks!
Mrs4

Nick-H

When I left Chennai recently, they were very interested in how long I had been here. Only my resident's permit allayed this interest.

I suspect that they may have decided to make sure that people who should have registered did do, and that people who have stayed longer than 180 days do have the right paperwork.

If I ever did leave India for good, I'd probably just hand in the RP at the airport, if they asked for it.

From now on, I will definitely travel with my RP original

4gotoIndia

A phone call to our friendly FRO office (Coimbatore), who we got to know all too well when we applied for our resident's permits confirmed that we do need to do this. Of course it is not a one off visit. We have to collect the form from Coimbatore, hand in 3 photos of each member of the family, and copy of our flight ticket out, we then take the form to our local police station, they confirm we have no criminal record, and we return the whole lot of Coimbatore. A week later they should have 'completed the necessary formalities' and we (hopefully) the collect the permit to leave.
Hope this is helpful to others.
mrs4

Nick-H

Goodness... It's easier to just pretend you're coming back!

Dr. DeLight

Goan Chuck
"You have to register within the first 14 days if your stay is going to exceed 180 days. On the 10 year tourist visa you are not eligible to stay more than 180 days continuously in India so the question of registration does not arise".

This person is misinformed. You may stay in India on a tourist visa forever how long your Visa is valid for but you must register within 14 days(or pay a late registeration fee) if you plan on staying longer than 180 days. No registration for 180 days or less.
I came into India on a 10 year tourist multi- entry visa which had 5 years remaining on it. I registered late and paid the fine and I am still hear legally and have bought and own property(patta)in my name.

Dr. DeLight

rcopple:

New visa means new registration.

dzibead

Dr. DeLight, YOU are the one who is absolutely misinformed, but fortunately for you, you have (so far) benefited from the notorious ignorance and/or incompetence of the FROs in Goa. There are many, many threads here at IM discussing this, not to mention the two enormous threads regarding foreigners buying property in Goa. See the following discussions:

Tourist visa registration possible these days? Change visa classification in India?

Foreign owned property in Goa, (Part One)

Foreign owned property in Goa, (part Two)

The maximum legal continuous stay on any tourist visa, regardless of the overall period of the visa's validity (one year, five years, ten years, whatever) is 180 days. "Registration" does not constitute permission to stay longer. On a tourist visa, you can "intend" to stay longer than 180 days, but if you do so (absent a genuine emergency, for which a brief extension can be granted), you are illegally overstaying your visa, because neither your intent, nor improper "registration" by the FRO overrides the visa regulations. Moreover, if you "purchased" property in Goa while holding a tourist visa, your purchase is illegal. I am aware of at least one person in your situation who was caught and deported. She was scrambling desperately to find a "buyer" for her property as she was facing deportation. You'd better hope you aren't next.

__________________
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln
"The perfect is the enemy of the good." - Voltaire

Dr. DeLight

dzibead

Where did you come up with the idea I live in Goa?
I live in South India in the State of Tamil Nadu.
I am fully aware of the articles you have quoted. Read all of them many moons ago.

My original comments are both valid and true.

Read the FEMA 1999 law/rules for purchasing property in India.

Also are you implying all FRRO officers and Superintends of Police in Tamil Nadu are illegally issuing Foreign Registration documents to all foreigners holding valid visas for more than 180days. Just in the town where I live there are over 150 foreigners registered with 'tourist visas' staying longer than 180 days in India some up to 10 years before returning to America for another new 10 year visa.
I will not respond to any other remarks are comments from you so do not waste your time or mine.


Mod Note
A personal insult was deleted yesterday.

dzibead

Be my guest. The person I referred to in my earlier post was also in denial, and like you, was also abusive toward me when I tried to tell her what her situation actually was (and I was right).

Regardless of whether you live in Goa or elsewhere, your information is incorrect. It is not at all uncommon for FROs in smaller places (who are just the local cops, after all) not to know the visa laws and to be confused by what's allowed under longer-term tourist visas. That doesn't make what these FROs are doing correct, and you'd better hope you don't run afoul of some better informed immigration officer down the line. If you contact an actual FRRO in one of the regional offices (who tend to be better trained and better informed than many of the local Sups of Police), I'm pretty confident that you'll be given the same information I've provided. And while you might be able to get away with abusiveness on this forum, I don't think it will go down well with the FRRO.

kmalik

Dr. DeLight,

I can not think of a more misinformed position than what you stated above. That you claim to have read the threads Dzibead referenced (which include links to Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI) clearly contradicting you and still maintain this position is even more problematic. That you respond with utter lack of grace to someone attempting you inform you and clarify the facts speaks to your negative personal attitude, to put it mildly.

When you post wrong and misleading information / advice on a public forum - expect to get challenged.

If your position is as stated - you are illegally overstaying your visa in India and have illegally acquired the property. Your continued presence and property rights, if any, are merely a function of incompetence and/or corruption in India. Maybe you will continue skating through this, or get caught and get the book thrown at you.

curtdfw

I think Dr. DeLight is partly relying on what was not necessarily the law but may have been a standing local practice by uninformed local immigration authorities or, as already suggested, local corruption.

Regardless, the current practice by the immigration authorities that stamp you in and out of the country are that "Irrespective of the duration of validity of visa, on each visit maximum period of stay in India is limited to 6 months (180 days)".

__________________
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative" Oscar Wilde

Nick-H

Regardless of the published or unpublished immigration laws and policy, ultimately, MHA may do, or do through its regional officers, anything it pleases. Whilst this may be unlikely, and should never, never be relied upon by those making plans for the future, it is possible.

On that basis, there may well be those on tourist visas who have been granted residence and permission to remain in the country, and the only person who can truly say that their situation is illegal would be --- future officers of the MHA, and we all know that many countries in the world make changes in immigration law that change the status of residents. Thus illegal can become legal, and, of course, thus it can become illegal again.

Dr DeLight may be such a person, I don't know --- we cannot say that he is, or has, broken the law, on the strength of what he has said.

We can say that the statement "You may stay in India on a tourist visa forever how long your Visa is valid for but you must register within 14 days" as a general dogma, outside of rare exceptions and the law-unto-itself Goa, is absolute rubbish.

kmalik

Nick -

I accept your argument that only the GOI and her officers are empowered to make definitive judgment in this matter. That said, people (qualified and unqualified) make judgments and opine on the legality of a situation or lack thereof.

The fact remains that multiple links giving information about the length of valid stay in India (including this from MHA)are consistent on the maximum length of stay on tourist visa information; and there is plenty of information and data on acquisition of property by foreigners in India. I invite you or others to provide one official link that casts doubt on this position.

So, on one hand we have is a number of official links supporting one position - and on the other we have anecdotes of individuals on tourist visa simply asserting the right to stay on on beyond the 180 days limit on the basis of registration (without any official document / argument suggesting registration equals extension of duration of stay). Furthermore, while they stay on in India, the legality of their continued stay in India(TBD by an official of GOI) remains undetermined as it has yet to be examined by the officials of GOI. So, the preponderance of evidence remains highly skewed, and the situation isn't quite as unclear as implied by some.

To respond to your post, I am happy to modify my statement from "you are illegally staying..." to "you are most likely staying...". I do, however, wish that, for balance, you were equally troubled to challenge Dr. DeLight's assertion

Applying the implicit logic in your post, only an official of GOI may make such an assertion!

dzibead

Following up on kmalik’s post, I have to disagree with Nick’s statement that "the MHA may do ... anything it pleases" and that "there may well be those on tourist visas who have been granted residence and permission to remain in the country". Under Indian law, which binds the MHA and the FRRO/FROs, being "resident in India" is legally inconsistent with one being there on a tourist visa. In fact, I have even read some visa regulation somewhere (I may be able to dig it up) that expressly says that tourist visas are given only to persons who are resident elsewhere.

I also simply cannot imagine a local FRO having the authority to override a general law in such a way that it amounts not simply to authorizing a brief extension on the grounds of exigent circumstances but actually to putting someone into a completely different immigration category - I especially can't imagine how an FRO could do this this without requiring the issuance of a different category of visa to the person. It's particularly hard to imagine the scenario Nick proposes since even formal applications for visa extensions based on exigent circumstances (except the very briefest extensions given to allow a person time to obey an order to leave the country after overstaying) have to go through the MHA in Delhi, and the local FRO or FRRO is limited to authorizing an extension only for the time the application is pending with the MHA. If this much rigamarole is required for a short formal extension, how could mere "registration" with the FRO constitute both a de facto and de jure extension overriding the 180-day limit?

The idea that the mere act of "registration" (which is simply a tracking mechanism) somehow constitutes "permission to stay" is simply not supported by anything I've ever seen. When ill-informed FROs register foreigners on long-term tourist visas I don't believe they think they are giving them "permission" to stay. I think these guys think (erroneously) that the long-term visa holder already has authorization to stay, because they don't know about or understand the 180-day limit for people on tourist visas. They don't think they're overriding or extending that limit; they just don't get that it applies to all tourist visas, even long-term ones.

So while I don't have any problem with Nick’s statement that some FROs in fact register people (which some plainly do) and may think the people they are registering have the right to stay for more than 180 days, I don’t agree with his apparent conclusion just because some "official" registers someone on a tourist visa that the registration in and of itself actually constitutes legal permission to stay for more than 180 days, instead of what it really is: a act by someone who isn't properly trained, which has no legal effect whatsoever. Just because "an official" does something doesn't mean that the act has a particular legal effect. "Registration" simply does not constitute "permission to stay." The person I referred to in an earlier post was also an American with a 10-year tourist visa, and had registered with the FRO and thought that constituted permission to stay and made her a "resident", but the officials who eventually "busted" her (several better-informed persons in one of the regional FRRO offices) begged to differ - and booted her. And her wailing to them about having registered with her local FRO cut no ice with them because they knew that the act of registration had no legal effect on her right to stay.