The High Court of Karnataka has directed the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) to allow a 46-year-old Bangladeshi woman to leave the country without insisting on any fee when not only her actions in India were suspicious, but she also had links with the officers of the Special Services Group (SSG) of an another neighbouring country.
“Any indulgence shown to the petitioner, on any kind of sympathy, would be putting fetters on the discretion of the government, the FRRO, and the Bureau of Immigration, more so in cases where there is even a semblance of threat to national security of any kind,” the court observed.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while dismissing a petition filed by Raktima Khanum, a resident of Rajajinagar and wife of one Janardhana Reddy.
What petitioner sought
The petitioner had sought an extension of her X-1 visa, which is granted to a foreigner who marries an Indian national. Though the FRRO had initially extended the visa, it later rejected it as she failed to produce a supporting letter from her husband. After the FRRO’s queries, she initiated a suit seeking maintenance from her husband claiming that he is not residing with her and evading her.
However, the court noted that the petitioner came into contact with Mr. Reddy through social media and initially came to India from Bangladesh on a tourist visa in 2017. She married Mr. Reddy, who got converted to Islam, in Delhi on December 25, 2017, and they got their marriage registered at Uttar Pradesh on January 2, 2018.
The court noted that the marriage was registered within seven days contrary to the law, which requires a month’s notice to be given before the registration, and also the marriage had not taken place within the jurisdiction of the marriage registration office.
From the records, the court noted that the petitioner appears to have worked in the Thailand Embassy office in Dhaka, Bangladesh, between 2003 and 2005, and in many of the airlines subsequently. There were a plethora of conversations through WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media platforms of the petitioner with the head or members of the SSG, which, as per the FRRO records, appears to have links with the army of the neighbouring nation, the court pointed out while refraining from discussing her other connections mentioned in the records due to confidentiality.
It is rather surprising that when the FRRO has all the information about the antecedents of the petitioner, and yet they are worried about payment of fee to send the petitioner out of the country, the court observed.