Indian and Foreign husbands; The child is Indian; Indian woman cannot be granted residence permit in Ireland: court

The Irish Supreme Court has upheld the Justice Minister's decision to deny residency under the special student scheme to an Indian woman who was found to have engaged in sham marriages with foreign-Indian husbands in Ireland. 

Regarding Indian-origin Sangeeta Rana, the minister said she had entered into a "marriage of convenience" to remain in the country under EU law. 

Rana came to Ireland in October 2009 on a student visa. The visa was supposed to expire in October 2014, but Rana married a Lithuanian national in September 2014, and after that marriage she was granted a five-year residency permit in March 2015.

In October 2016, Ms. Rana gave birth to a child whose father was an Indian citizen, and when the registration card expired in September 2017, she did not seek to renew it. But Ms Rana's husband, who is Lithuanian, had been in contact with his partner in Lithuania since February 2011 and had been living with her, the minister said.

A 'special scheme' was introduced in 2018 to allow certain non-EEA nationals who had a student permit between 2005 and 2010 to remain  in Ireland. Non-European Economic Area (NON EEA) nationals were granted student visa permission to stay in Ireland prior to 2011, but permission to remain in the country has since expired. Later, they obtained a different residence permit by marrying a non-Irish EU citizen. The minister refused permission to remain in the state under the 'special scheme' on the basis of the determination that the "individuals are not of good character and conduct". 

The minister informed Ms. Rana that her documents were false and misleading and that she had knowingly submitted them to gain rights. Sangita Rana had appealed to the court against this decision. The Supreme Court upheld the Justice Minister's decision to deny residency under the Special Student Scheme. 

However, the defendant was allowed to continue under another scheme called "regularization of long-term undocumented immigrants". In its judgment today, "individuals refused the 'special scheme' retain all relevant rights under ECHR protections". 

The Minister ruled that it was right to reject applicants under 'Special Scheme' criteria. "Their actions could be seen as an attack on the integrity of the state's and EU's immigration systems, as they claimed EU rights to which they were not entitled," the judge said.