London: An Indian man who was convicted of 23 counts of sexual abuse of a male child within his family has been stripped of his British citizenship and faces deportation to India.
The man, who can only be identified as RSD for legal reasons, came to the UK from India in 1997 and was granted British citizenship in 2004. In 2011, he was found guilty of grooming and raping a 7-year-old child.
According to a 'Sunday Telegraph' report, a UK court sentenced him to 14 years imprisonment and placed him on the sexual offenders' register for life after finding him to have groomed and raped the boy between 2003 and 2010.
In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, the UK Home Secretary removed his citizenship on the grounds that when he applied to be a UK citizen he lied about the fact he was sexually abusing a child.
The man won an appeal against that decision but a senior judge has ruled in favour of the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, upholding the decision to strip RSD of his passport this month, which means he now faces being deported to India.
An Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber judge said in a judgement published recently: "It is my conclusion that the appellant obtained naturalisation in 2004 by deliberately concealing material facts."
A Home Office spokesperson said: Any British Citizen may be deprived of his or her citizenship if the Secretary of State is satisfied that it would be conducive to the public good. It is a power used for extreme and exceptional cases.
Deprivation on conducive grounds can be used where individuals pose a threat to national security, or have been involved in war crimes, serious and organised crime, and unacceptable behaviours such as extremism or glorification of terrorism, unless to deprive would render them stateless.
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