SC temporarily halts deportation of family to Pakistan amid citizenship dispute

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday halted the deportation of a family to Pakistan after they claimed they held valid Indian passports and Aadhaar cards.

India revoked all valid visas issued to Pakistani nationals starting April 27, in response to the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 tourists and injured several others. The Centre also directed all states and Union Territories to ensure 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 until 1997, but later moved to the city of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir.

The family received a notice on April 25 from the Foreign Registration Office (FRO) in Srinagar asking them to leave India when their visa expires, assuming 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 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 the 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.

(With IANS inputs)