SINGH ROSHAN v. TORTURE CLAIMS APPEAL BOARD

HCAL 122/2025

[2025] HKCFI 1786

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 122 OF 2025

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 the Applicant being absent in open court;

Leave to apply for judicial review be refused.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.  The Applicant is a 18-year-old national of India who arrived in Hong Kong on 24 August 2024 but when he was refused entry by the Immigration Department, he raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to India he would be harmed or killed by his girlfriend’s family who objected to their relationship.

2.  The Applicant was born and raised as a Sikh in Bath, Punjab, India. After leaving school he worked as a farmer in his home district, and dated his girlfriend from his home district, but as she was a Hindu, her family objected to their relationship due to their different religions.

3.  One day in 2023 his girlfriend’s father came to his home with 2 other men to demand the Applicant to stop seeing his daughter, and then pulled out a pistol and threatened to shoot the Applicant if he failed to heed his demand, and before they left, they vandalized his home by breaking and damaging his household items.

4.  However, when the Applicant continued to see his girlfriend despite the threats from her father, soon her father again came to the Applicant’s home and pointed his pistol at his head threatening that it was a last warning that next time he would just shoot and kill him.

5.  As a result the Applicant became fearful for his life, and on his mother’s advice he departed India in August 2024 for Thailand, and from there he later travelled to Hong Kong, and when he was refused entry by the Immigration Department, he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non‑refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 21 September 2024 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

6.  By a Notice of Decision dated 10 October 2024 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 found no substantial grounds for believing that there will be any real and substantial risk of him being harmed or killed by his girlfriend’s family upon his return to India 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 other than to deter him from continuing with his relationship with his girlfriend, that in any event it was a private personal dispute between him and his girlfriend’s family only without 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 1.4 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 young adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Mumbai or Hyderabad where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

8.  On 23 October 2024 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 29 November 2024 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 23 December 2024 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.  In its decision the Board did not take issue with the Applicant’s claim of threats from his girlfriend’s family but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of her family to seriously harm or kill him, and that in any event it was a private relationship dispute between him and his girlfriend’s family only without 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 9 January 2025 the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, and put forward the following grounds for his intended challenge:

(1)  That the Board reached the decision wrongly in assessing his non‑refoulement claim as the decision was not fair or reasonable as required by the Wednesbury test in failing to recognize that his life must be protected by the criminal law from extra-judicial killings that he may face if deported back to his home country;

(2)  That the Board failed to appreciate or place proper or sufficient weight or importance to the presence of State Acquiescence in his case which led to an unfair outcome of rejecting his claim;

(3)  That the Adjudicator acted unreasonable and was procedurally unfair by placing too much reliance on COI but failed to take into account the Applicant’s personal background and experience in assessing his claim;

(4)  That the Board had listed relevant COI which supported the Applicant’s aversions that the police in his country would not be able to protect but failed to consider or give sufficient weight to such evidence and instead ruled otherwise against the Applicant’s case which was a clear case of unfair attitude shown by the Board which in itself is enough to render its decision void;

(5)  That the Board failed to attain the high standard of fairness required by the Wednesbury test in failing to take into account the Applicant’s argument that corruption and incompetency of the administration in the Applicant’s country is still a very serious problem as various human rights organizations had compiled reports that stated testament to the Applicant’s assertions;

(6)  That the Adjudicator was procedurally improper and unfair when assessing whether or not to accept the Applicant’s explanations and unreasonably required him to respond to questions that he was not in a position to offer any response;

(7)  That the Adjudicator made a ruling to dismiss the Applicant’s appeal based on findings which the Adjudicator ought to allow and thus the decision was irrational.

11.  These are however all just bare and vague assertions of the Applicant containing a few key words or phrases but without any relevant or necessary particulars or specifics or elaborations as to how they apply to his case or how the Board or the Adjudicator had erred in the decision, or in what way was the decision unfair or unreasonable or that the Adjudicator had acted procedurally unfair or irrational, or how did the Adjudicator fail to take into account of relevant COI or being selective or improperly rely on irrelevant COI, or what relevancy were state acquiescence or extra-judicial killings to the Applicant’s case when on the factual basis of even his own case that it was a private relationship dispute between him and his girlfriend’s family only without any official involvement or political element at all, nor did he attend the scheduled hearing of his application without any explanation. As such, and as none of these assertions were properly elaborated or presented with any relevant particulars or specifics by the Applicant, I do not find any of them reasonably arguable for his intended challenge.

12.  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.

13.  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 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.

14.  In the premises, and 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.

15.  For all these reasons I am not satisfied that there is any prospect of success in the Applicant’s intended application for judicial review, I therefore refuse to grant leave and accordingly dismiss his 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