SEREMBAN, MALAYSIA - A consultant who was born in Malaysia says he has not been allowed to return to the country because authorities have failed to provide him with a new passport for the past 31 years.

Supporting document: Ravindran showing his late father's Malaysian identity card.

C.K. Ravindran has a valid Malaysian citizen identity card, has travelled on a Malaysian passport and holds a Malaysian birth certificate to prove his nationality.

Checks with the National Registration Department confirm his claims about the documents and the department was trying to determine why Ravindran had difficulties getting his passport.

Born at the Malacca General Hospital on June 25, 1948, he left for India in 1967 to study at the St Xavier's College in Trivandrum, India. Ravindran continued his studies at Christ College in Bangalore and graduated as a form rubber technologist.

He married in 1975 and he and his wife had a baby girl a year later.

'However our baby girl died within months and this badly affected my wife,' he said in a phone interview.

Ravindran, who also studied at the Tuanku Muhammad School in Kuala Pilah, St Paul's Institution in Seremban and St Aidan's School in Bahau, had planned to return to Malaysia before his passport expired in 1977 but could not do so as he did not want to leave his emotionally-disturbed wife alone in India.

Childhood days: Ravindran (standing right) and his siblings posing outside their house in Bahau Estate in a 1963 picture. Their father, C.K Kumaran, was employed as a manager at the estate.

He said that before his passport expired he went to the Malaysian consular office in Chennai, where he was told that it was impossible to grant him an extension.

In November 1980, he submitted an application for a new Malaysian passport and gave officers at the consular office his blue identity card and an extract of his birth certificate.

Ravindran said that although he tried convincing the officers at the consular office in Chennai of his nationality, they never believed him.

He had three brothers in Malaysia at the time who were able to vouch for him but one has since migrated to France while another is working in the hotel industry in Fiji and he has lost touch with the youngest sibling.

In 1989, Ravindran received an acknowledgement from the immigration attache at the consulate in Chennai telling him all his original documents had been forwarded to Kuala Lumpur for further action.

In 1995, he was asked to give the name of a Malaysian sponsor to enable authorities here to verify his story but was later informed that they could not locate the person.

He said both his parents were born in Malaysia where his late father and 80-year-old mother hold identification cards.

'I have been through a lot and just want to return to my homeland,' added Ravindran.