No coercive action till decision is taken: SC on plea by Srinagar man facing deportation along with family
The Supreme Court asked the Centre on Friday to verify claims by a man that he and his family of six, who were issued deportation orders following the Pahalgam terror attack, were, in fact, Indian nationals with valid passports and Aadhaar cards.
A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and N K Singh directed the authorities to verify the documents and other relevant facts and added, “Let an appropriate decision be taken at the earliest, though we are not stating any timeline.”
“In the peculiar facts, authorities may not take coercive action till an appropriate decision is taken,” the court said, adding that the petitioner can approach the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh if dissatisfied with the final decision.
The Bench also remarked that this is not to be treated as a precedent.
Petitioner Ahmed Tariq Butt claimed to have moved with his family from Mirpur in Pakistan occupied Kashmir to Srinagar in 1997.
He said he is an Indian national with a valid passport and Aadhaar and that his family comprises his father, mother, elder sister and two younger brothers.
Butt said his family were residents of Mirpur until 1997, when his father moved to J&K capital. He and the other family members moved there in 2000, and the siblings were educated in a private school.
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Butt said the Ministry of Home Affairs passed an order dated April 25 this year, directing Pakistani nationals to leave India, and that following this, a notice was issued to him and his family by the Foreigners Registration Office, Srinagar.
“In the said individual notices, the FRO has illegally and baselessly claimed that the Petitioner No. 1 (Butt) and his family members have entered India in the year 1997 and there was an obligation to leave India on expiration of their visa on the premise that they are Pakistani nationals,” the plea said.
Seeking the court’s intervention, he said that his “father, mother, sister and a younger brother were arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir Police on April 29 at around 9 pm illegally” and “were taken to the India-Pakistan border on April 30 at around 12.20 pm”. He said they “are at present being forced to leave India from the border” and that “deportation is imminent even though they are Indian nationals”.
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