Registro — Titular de la tarjeta OCI a ciudadano (§5(1)(g) puente)

Four elements are required for §5(1)(g): (1) full age and capacity (§2(1)(e), §2(4)); (2) registration as an Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder for five years — the applicant must already hold OCI status under §7A, itself subject to the §7A second-proviso ancestral bar excluding any person whose self, parent, grandparent or great-grandparent is or had been a citizen of Pakistan or Bangladesh (or a country notified by the Central Government); (3) ordinary residence in India for twelve months before the application; and (4) the §5(1) chapeau conditions — not an illegal migrant (§2(1)(b)) and not already a citizen. A full-age applicant must take the Second Schedule oath of allegiance before registration (§5(2)), and the §5(3) prior-loss bar applies (a former Indian citizen who renounced, was deprived, or whose citizenship terminated cannot register except by Central Government order). The grant is discretionary under §14, which permits grant or refusal without assigned reasons, final subject to §15 revision. Because becoming an Indian citizen is incompatible with retaining foreign nationality under India's no-dual-citizenship rule (Constitution Art 9; §9), a successful applicant must renounce and surrender the foreign citizenship — the OCI card, which presupposes foreign nationality and being 'not a citizen of India', cannot coexist with Indian citizenship.

An OCI Cardholder applies to the Central Government (via the MHA online citizenship portal, indiancitizenshiponline.nic.in) for registration under §5(1)(g). The Central Government verifies the five-year OCI holding, the twelve-month India residence, full age/capacity and the chapeau conditions. If satisfied, it may register the applicant; the grant is discretionary under §14 and final subject to §15 revision. Before registration a full-age applicant takes the Second Schedule oath of allegiance (§5(2)); on registration the person becomes a citizen by registration from the date of registration (§5(5)). The distinctive procedural consequence is the no-dual-citizenship step: on becoming an Indian citizen the person must renounce and surrender the foreign nationality, because India does not permit dual citizenship (Constitution Art 9; §9 — cross-reference route IN-LOSS-02). Note that §5(1)(g) itself contains no express renunciation undertaking (the express undertaking-to-renounce sits in Third Schedule clause (b) for §6 naturalisation); for §5 registration the renunciation obligation flows from the constitutional no-dual spine rather than an express §5 clause. Government fees and processing timelines are operational figures not asserted here.

Section 5(1)(g) is the sole statutory bridge from Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) Cardholder status to Indian citizenship. It empowers the Central Government, on an application made in that behalf, to register as a citizen of India a person of full age and capacity who has been registered as an Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder for five years and who is ordinarily resident in India for twelve months before making the application. OCI is a NON-CITIZENSHIP overseas status under §§7A-7D: the Ministry of External Affairs states OCI 'is not to be misconstrued as dual citizenship' and 'does not confer political rights', and an OCI Cardholder is a foreign national holding a foreign passport who is not a citizen of India. Clause (g) is part of the §5(1) text substituted by Act 6 of 2004 (w.e.f. 3 December 2004), which introduced the OCI scheme; its present wording reflects two substitutions by the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2015 (Act 1 of 2015, w.e.f. 6 January 2015): 'Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder' replaced 'Overseas Citizen of India', and 'is ordinarily resident in India for twelve months' replaced 'has been residing in India for one year'. Section 5(1)(g) is therefore the only route by which an OCI Cardholder can convert that overseas status into actual Indian nationality; on success the status_class flips from overseas_status (route IN-OCI-01) to citizenship.