New Delhi: The Kerala high court on October 26 quashed an FIR against two Pakistanis who had travelled to the state for medical treatment, noting that police’s act of booking them has “brought ignominy to our system.”
Justice K. Haripal allowed the writ petition by the Pakistan nationals who had been booked under the Foreigners Act, noting that they had followed all procedure, reported LiveLaw.
The court also chastised police for “registering a crime at the drop of a hat.”
“It is expected that when foreign nationals are involved, responsible officials would exhibit little more sensibility and act cautiously. An exception has to be taken for registering a crime at the drop of a hat. Here absolutely no reason is made out for initiating criminal prosecution against the petitioners who had reached India with valid travel documents; their arrival was duly intimated to the Special Branch and the officials of the Special Branch were monitoring them,” the court said.
The police authorities were directed by the court to issue a police clearance certificate to the petitioners within three days.
LiveLaw has noted that one of the two petitioners was suffering from cervical spinal cord injuries and sought treatment from the AAMRI Rehab International hospital at Ernakulam. Immediately after he arrived at Ernakulam with his medical attendant, on a medical visa for three months, the matter was initiated to the Assistant Commissioner of Police of Special Branch, Ernakulam. The hospital, too, informed this special branch of his arrival.
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The injured petitioner was discharged after treatment and was scheduled to leave the country from Chennai. However, they were not allowed to leave without a police clearance certificate. When they returned to Kochi and sought the certificate, police told them that they had been booked under sections 11 and 14 of the Foreigners Act. The petitioners approached the court, alleging that this was a clear violation of their rights.
Section 11 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, accords power to give effect to orders and directions to authorities and section 14 deals with penalty for contravention of provisions of the Act.
Taking a dim view of the FIR registered against the two, the court also highlighted that the first petitioner was seriously ill and in an immobile condition. “Such a person couldn’t be expected to report to the police station physically,” it said.
The court said that the only omission on the part of the petitioners “was their failure to make a written request for getting a police clearance certificate prior to their departure from Kochi.”
The court also noted that the petitioners had not violated the terms of their visa, nor had they meddled with their residential permits or caused threat to national security.
“‘It is the settled proposition of law that where the allegations made in the FIR or the complaint even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, do not prima facie constitute any offence or make out a case against the accused or where the allegations in the FIR and other materials do not disclose a cognizable offence justifying an investigation by police, the court is justified in quashing the proceedings at the threshold,” the court said, pronouncing the FIR illegal and quashing it.