The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has upheld the deportation of a Pakistani couple, Mohammad Khalil Qazi and Arifa Qazi, who had been living in Srinagar since 1988 on extended visas.
In a judgment, Justice Sindhu Sharma dismissed their decades-old writ petition filed in 1990, stating that the couple had voluntarily acquired Pakistani citizenship and were no longer Indian citizens under Section 9(1) of the Citizenship Act, 1955. The Court ruled that their continued stay in India had no legal basis.
Mohammad Khalil Qazi, born in Srinagar in 1945, migrated to Pakistan during the 1947 partition and later became a Pakistani national. His wife, Arifa Qazi, also originally from Srinagar, held an Indian passport before marrying Khalil in Rawalpindi in 1986, after which she too became a Pakistani citizen. The couple and their minor son entered India in 1988 on Pakistani passports and received three visa extensions before being served a deportation order in 1989.
They challenged the order in the High Court, which stayed their deportation pending a final decision. However, the Court found no record of the couple formally applying for Indian citizenship and rejected their claim that they were forced to take Pakistani nationality due to circumstances.
“The petitioners acted on their own volition and acquired citizenship of a foreign country. Their documents clearly establish that they are not Indian citizens,” the Court observed, reaffirming the validity of the 1989 deportation order.
Advocates Mohammad Altaf Khan and Hashir Shafiq represented the petitioners, while Senior AAG Mohsin Qadri, Deputy Solicitor General TM Shamsi, and their assisting counsels appeared for the government. [KNT]
