SC directs release of Pak national lodged in detention centre for over 7 years

Centre to decide on granting a long-term visa to enable him to apply for Indian citizenship

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday directed the release of a 62-year-old Pakistan national who has been languishing in a detention centre here for more than seven years as Islamabad refused to accept him as its citizen.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli directed the Centre to decide on granting him a long-term visa, to enable him to apply for Indian Citizenship.

The top court said that the Centre should place its decision before the court in four months.

The bench said that Mohammad Qamar, who has been declared a foreigner by the tribunal will be released on the bond of Rs 5000, and sureties of like amount will have to report to a Police station in Meerut once every month.

The top court noted that

Qamar had married a woman, who is an Indian citizen and had five children out of wedlock. His daughter and son have filed a plea seeking his release from the detention centre.

The bench also took note that as per the Uttar Pradesh government, his wife had divorced him and now stays in Delhi with her five children.

However, no document pertaining to the divorce has been produced before the court , the bench said in its order.

At the outset, senior advocate Sanjay Parikh said that Qamar should be released and be united with his family as there is an apex court order in the case of Assam detention centres where detenues who have been lodged for more than two years were directed to be released.

Earlier, on March 21, the top court had asked the Centre as to how long it wished to keep him in the detention Centre as he has completed his sentence and is now lodged in a detention Centre.

It had directed Additional Solicitor General K M Nataraj to seek instruction on whether Qamar can be released to enable him to apply for Indian citizenship as his five children are Indian citizens.

On Feb 28, the top court had asked the Centre to take a call on his release for a brief period to enable him to apply for Indian citizenship.

It had said that he has served his sentence of three years and six months and after that he has been lodged in a detention centre since 2015, awaiting his deportation.

Qamar was arrested on August 8, 2011, from Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, and was held guilty by a court here for overstaying his visa. He was sentenced to three years and six months in jail and a fine of Rs 500.

Having completed his sentence on February 6, 2015, he was sent to the detention centre at Lampur in Narela here on February 7, 2015, for deportation to Pakistan.

However, the Pakistani government did not accept his deportation and he is still languishing at the detention centre. According to his daughter and son, who have moved to the top court through advocate Srishti Agnihotri, their father Qamar alias Mohammad Kamil was born in India in 1959.

He (Qamar) had gone with his mother from India to Pakistan as a child of around 7-8 years in 1967-1968 on a visa to meet his relatives there. However, his mother died there, and he remained in Pakistan in the care of his relatives , the plea of habeas corpus filed in the top court said.

It said that Qamar, on attaining adulthood, came back to India on a Pakistani passport around 1989-1990 and got married to Shehnaaj Begum, an Indian citizen, in Meerut.

Out of this wedlock, five children were born , the plea said, adding that Qamar has no documentary proof to show that he had gone with his mother to Pakistan around 1967-68 and his mother died there therefore, his story has not been believed. Nevertheless, 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 and, subsequently, got married here, it said.