The Supreme Court on Monday granted two weeks’ time to the Centre to decide on the status of a 62-year-old man who has been in a detention centre in India since 2015 for overstaying his visa after coming from Pakistan. He could not be deported as Pakistan has refused to accept that he was a citizen of that country, PTI reported.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant asked Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj to seek instruction from the government on a plea filed by 62-year-old Mohammad Qamar.
On February 6, 2011, Qamar was arrested from Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut city and was found guilty of overstaying his visa. He was sentenced to prison for three years and six months along with a fine of Rs 500, according to PTI.
In 2015, after completing his sentence, Qamar was moved to a detention centre in New Delhi’s Narela area for his deportation to Pakistan. However, the Pakistan government refused to accept his deportation and denied that he was a citizen of the country.
Qamar’s children in their petition in the court claimed that their father was born in India in 1959.
“He [Qamar] had gone with his mother from India to Pakistan as a child of around seven-eight years in 1967-1968 on a visa to meet his relatives there,” the plea said. “However, his mother died there, and he remained in Pakistan in the care of his relatives.”
The petitioner submitted after turning an adult, Qamar came back to India on a Pakistani passport around 1989-1990 and got married to Indian citizen Shehnaaj Begum.
“Qamar has no documentary proof to show that he had gone with his mother to Pakistan around 1967-68 and his mother died there and therefore, his story has not been believed,” the petition stated. “...The undisputed fact is that he came to India around 1989-90 on a passport of Pakistan and did not renew his visa due to lack of education.”
At Monday’s hearing, the court asked the additional solicitor general if the Centre would consider releasing Qamar from the detention centre so he could apply for citizenship as his children are Indian citizens.
“How long will you keep him?” the court questioned.
The additional solicitor general sought an adjournment in the case and said the matter was being discussed at the “highest level in the government”, according to Live Law.
Advocate Sanjay Parikh, while appearing on behalf of Qamar, referred to a 2020 Supreme Court order which held that people detained for over two years in Assam Foreigners Detention Centre can be released. He added that the said order was not being followed in Qamar’s case.
“They [the government] are saying the order is with respect to foreigners from Bangladesh and cannot be applied in this case,” Parikh said, according to Live Law. “How can such a distinction be made? We are only seeking an enforcement of this court’s order?”
To this, Nataraj responded by saying that a Pakistani citizen cannot claim equal rights as an Indian. “He has no right to do,” he said, according to PTI.
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