It has been rough for Navin Moorthy in his long fight for citizenship, but for the 17-year-old it has all paid off as he applied for his identification card today.

"Finally recognised," Navin said when met by reporters at the National Registration Department (NRD) in Putrajaya today, where he was accompanied by his father Moorthy Ramiah Pillai and lawyer Annou Xavier.

While he is happy, the formerly stateless teenager said he would not rejoice until his MyKad is safely in his hands.

"It took (so long) for this thing. Finally, I'm going to get it so it's a very big deal for me.

"You're pretty much no one in this world (without the MyKad). That was how I felt all this while," he lamented.

For now, the teenager has temporary identification papers.

Xavier added that the home minister had signed a letter stating that Navin's citizenship application had been approved.

When asked what he will do first with his citizenship, Navin said he does not know yet.

"I can't really tell what I'm going to do first because there's a lot of things on my mind," he said.

Navin was born in 1998 to a Malaysian father and a mother of Filipino descent, but his father discovered when he was two years old that he was listed as "bukan warganegara" (non-citizen) in the NRD system.

After his father's citizenship application for him to the NRD were rejected twice, a civil suit was filed in 2013.

Though the High Court granted him the order stating he is a Malaysian citizen in 2014 and had ordered a MyKad to be issued to Navin within a month, the government appealed the decision.

In 2015, the Court of Appeal ordered Navin to reapply to the NRD for citizenship and directed the NRD to process his application for citizenship.