Immigrationboards.com

Hi,
I have booked my citizenship ceremony on 1st Jul 21 as that was the only date available. I plan to travel to India in Aug 21 and was trying to understand the options I have. I can't cancel my trip to India so I was thinking that it might be best to withdraw my citizenship application and re-apply afterwards. The reason i am considering to withdraw is because currently etourist visas to india are suspended and I dont know when they will re-open it and I wouldnt have sufficient time to surrender my Indian passport and get an OCI issued within the available time.

I wanted to understand what is process to withdraw the application and re-apply for citizenship. Do I have to go through full naturalisation process again or there is a shorter process as my application was already approved. Are there any negative impacts due to withdrawal of the application

Thanks in advance

You can not withdraw your application since it is decided now. If you will not attend the ceremony before the deadline (6 months after the ceremony invitation), the certificate will be sent back to HO and your application will be cancelled. You will loose the fees.

You will have to RE apply in the future starting afresh meeting all the requirements on the application date, completing the same process and paying the fees again which will take 6-12 months.

Try to contact your council and ask for any earlier cancellations/paid private/virtual appointments etc.

The choice is yours but it would be ideal if you can attend your ceremony and schedule your travel later unless you are determined to take the strenuous journey down the lane.

Thanks. Very helpful

I have contacted the council to get an earlier date for the ceremony.

I just wanted to inform you from my recent experience that currently HCI appointments are booked till 25th June in London for surrendering passport. I am not sure how long it will take to get OCI after that. But probably not before 1st July.
My understanding is that emergency travel is allowed even now also on British passport and more details are on HCI website. Probably best to speak with HCI in advance as getting OCI by July seems unlikely - The OCI visa process takes approximately 6-8 weeks from submission to VFS for your brand new OCI ticket.