SC temporarily halts deportation of a family to Pakistan

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday came to the rescue of a family detained for deportation to Pakistan, after it claimed that they were holding Indian passports and Aadhaar cards.

The Union government, in response to the deadly terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K) Pahalgam, has revoked all valid visas issued by India to Pakistani nationals starting April 27 and had directed all states and Union Territories for their immediate removal.

In the writ petition filed before the top court, the petitioners claimed that they are Indian nationals, and were residents of Mirpur till the year 1997 but later moved to the city of Srinagar in J&K.

The family had received a notice on April 25 from the Foreign Registration Office (FRO) in Srinagar asking them to leave India on expiration of their visa on the premise that they are Pakistani nationals.

Further, the lead petitioner, who obtained an MBA from IIM, Kerala and is presently working in Bengaluru, claimed that his father, mother, elder sister and younger sisters were arrested by the J&K Police illegally on April 29 at around 9 pm.

The plea stated the family members were taken to the India-Pakistan Border on April 30 at around 12.20 pm and are at present being forced to leave India from the border.

In an interim relief, a Bench of Justices Surya Kant and NK Singh ordered that no coercive measures be taken against the petitioners till verification of documents.

“Since factual pleas raised require verification, including genuineness of documents, we dispose of the present writ petition at this stage without expressing any opinion on merits, with a direction to authorities to verify the documents or any other relevant facts that may be brought to their notice.

“Let an appropriate decision be taken at the earliest, though we are not stating any timeline,” ordered the Justice Kant-led Bench.

The apex court clarified that its order will not be treated as precedent in other cases of deportation.

IANS