JASPAL SINGH v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 444/2021

[2024] HKCFI 2640

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 444 OF 2021

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review
NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord 53 r 3)

Following:

	consideration of the documents only;            or
	consideration of the documents and oral submissions by the Applicant in open court / the Applicant being absent in open court;

The application for leave to apply for judicial review be dismissed.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 36-year-old national of India who arrived in Hong Kong on 1 June 2014 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 3 June 2014 when he did not depart and instead overstayed, and more than 1 ½ years later on 18 February 2016 he surrendered to the Immigration Department and raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to India he would be harmed or killed by a group of rival Sikh religious group due to religious disputes. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised in Village Sakhira, Tarn Taran, Punjab, India. After leaving school he worked as a farmer in his home village, and joined a local Sikh Religion community under the leadership of the preacher Baljit Singh Daduwal (“BSD”) for whom he subsequently became a bodyguard.

3.  There was however another Sikh religious group in his home village led by another preacher Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh (“GRRS”) who was a rival to BSD and their respective followers often came into violent clashes or confrontations.

4.  One day in April 2014 there was a big gathering of followers from both rival groups in Daduwal, and soon those GRRS followers started to attack the BSD followers, during which the Applicant in trying to protect BDS fired several gun shots into the air but which caused the commotions to escalate and resulted in several injuries and death, and of which the GRRS followers then reported to the police and accused the Applicant of being the culprit for the incident.

5.  As a result the Applicant became fearful of revenge being taken by the GRRS followers against him or of the police going after him, and therefore fled to New Delhi, and on 31 May 2014 he departed India for Hong Kong where he subsequently overstayed and raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 9 November 2018 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation.

6.  By a Notice of Decision dated 21 November 2018 the Director of Immigration (“Director”) rejected the Applicant’s claim on all the applicable grounds including risk of torture under Part VIIC of the Immigration Ordinance, Cap 115 (“Torture Risk”), risk of his absolute or non-derogable rights under the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance, Cap 383 (“HKBOR”) being violated including right to life under Article 2 (“BOR 2 Risk”), risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under Article 3 of HKBOR (“BOR 3 Risk”), and risk of persecution with reference to the non-refoulement principle under Article 33 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (“Persecution Risk”).

7.  In his decision the Director took into account of all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from those GRRS followers upon his return to India as low due to the low intensity and frequency of past ill-treatment from them, that there is no evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill him or to have any reason to specifically target him given that he was just a bodyguard only, nor is there any evidence of any adverse interest of the police in him given the fact that he was able to leave the country without any problem, that that in any event in the absence of any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant if resorted to, and that reliable and objective Country of Origin Information (“COI”) show that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in India with a large population of 1.2 billion people spread across a vast territory of more than 3.2 million square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as New Delhi or Mumbai where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

8.  On 4 December 2018 the Applicant lodged an appeal to the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“Board”) against the Director’s decision, and for which he attended an oral hearing on 5 March 2021 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 11 March 2021, his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.  In its decision the Board found material inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Applicant’s evidence that it doubted the credibility of his claim of fear of harm from those GRRS followers that caused him to leave his country to come to Hong Kong to seek protection, that reliable COI show that GRRS had since his departure of India been arrested by the authorities for murder and was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison that it is not accepted that GRRS would still have any followers or that they would still have any adverse interest in the Applicant, and that in any event in the absence of any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon his return to India as well as reasonable internal relocation alternatives for him to move safely to other parts of the country away from his home district without any risk of being located that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.

10.  On 29 March 2021 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in his Form or his supporting affirmation of the same date to which he just attached a copy of the decision but without putting forth any proper ground for his intended challenge. As such and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality or procedural unfairness in his process before the Board or in its decision being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, I do not find any reasonably arguable basis for his intended challenge.

11.  As has been repeatedly emphasized by the Court of Appeal, judicial review does not operate as a rehearing of a non-refoulement claim when the proper occasion for the Applicant to present and articulate his claim is in the screening process and interview before the Immigration Department and in the process before the Board where the evaluation of the risk of harm is primarily a matter for the Director and the Board as they are entitled to make such evaluation based on the evidence available to them that the court will not usurp their role as primary decision makers in the absence of any legal error or procedural unfairness or irrationality in their decisions being clearly and properly identified by the Applicant, as judicial review is not an avenue for revisiting the assessment by them in the hope that the court may consider the matter afresh: Re Lakhwinder Singh [2018] HKCA 246; Re Daljit Singh [2018] HKCA 328; Re Mudannayakalage Chaminda Pushpa Kumara [2018] HKCA 400; and Nupur Mst v Director of Immigration [2018] HKCA 524.

12.  In the Applicant’s case, the fact is that it has been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decisions that the risk of harm in his claim even if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other part of India, there is simply no justification to afford him with non-refoulement protection in Hong Kong: see TK v Jenkins & Anor [2013] 1 HKC 526.

13.  Having considered the decisions of both the Director and the Board with rigorous examination and anxious scrutiny, I do not find any error of law or procedural unfairness in either of them, nor any failure on their part to apply high standards of fairness in their consideration and assessment of the Applicant’s claim.

14.  Moreover, the Applicant recently on 21 August 2024 filed an affirmation requesting to “close” his case as he wanted to go back to his home country, and that accordingly he was subsequently removed from Hong Kong.

15.  In the premises, as I am for the given reasons not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, I accordingly dismiss his leave application.

Where leave to apply has been granted, Applicants and their legal advisers are reminded of their obligation to reconsider the merits of their application in the light of the Respondent’s evidence

Form CALL-1