YUSUF IBRAHIM MANSURI Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition for a writ of prohibition restraining the respondents from deporting or externing the petitioner from out of the territory of India the petitioners case being that he is a citizen of India.

(2.) The petitioner entered India on November 17 1954 on a Pakistani passport dated the 2nd of November 1954 bearing No. 239028. After coming to India he was employed by his cousin one Yusuf Ismail Lala a forest contractor carrying on business in Godhra first as a cleaner and there- after as a driver of a motor-truck. The petitioner obtained a licence from the R.T.O. Baroda for the purpose of enabling him to drive the motor- truck and got himself married to one Kulsum the daughter of Moosa Gafur of village Vejalpur in district Panchmahals. Thereafter he was prosecuted in criminal case No. 743 of 1958 in the Court of the Judicial Magistrate First Class Godhra on a charge under section 14 of the Foreigners Act 1946 read with paragraph 7 of the Foreigners Order 1948 The petitioner was acquitted in that case by the learned Magistrate who held that the petitioner was not a foreigner within the meaning of section 2 of the Foreigners Act and therefore could not be said to have committed breach of paragraph 7 of the Foreigners Order. The State of Gujarat appears to have been satisfied with that order and accepted that order as it did not file any appeal challenging the correctness of that order. But by an order dated December 12 1960 which was served upon the petitioner on February 22 1961 the petitioner was required to go out of India within 7 days from the service of that order. The -order alleged that the petitioner was a foreigner and therefore was not entitled to stay in India. The petitioner was arrested by the Godhra police on February 28 1961 at 5 p.m. and was thrown out of this country. He reached Karachi on March 3 1961 The petitioner then applied for a pass- port a fortnight after he reached Karachi. He managed to obtain a Pakistani passport on March 21 1961 on the strength of which he re-entered India on April 5 1961 and has since then been staying in Godhra with the aforesaid Yusuf. The petitioner prays for a writ of prohibition on the ground that he apprehends that on the expiry of the visa granted to him he would again be expelled from this country by the respondents though he is not a foreigner and is a citizen of this country.

(3.) According to the petitioner he was born at Godhra on March 1 1938 of parents who also were born in India. He continued his studies in India and was brought up from his childhood by the aforesaid Yusuf. It is his case that he was lured away to Pakistan in 1953 by one Rasul Ibrahim. If that were to be true. it would mean that he left this country and went to Pakistan when he was about 15 years of age. According to him he did not go to Pakistan either with the desire or intention of migrating to that country or to renounce his citizenship of India and/or acquire the citizenship of Pakistan. His case is that as he could not come back to India he applied as a last resort for Pakistani passport as a mere device to return to India and obtained a Pakistani passport dated November 2 1954 and also a visa. On the strength of these documents he entered India via Bombay on November 17 1954 and was residing in India when as aforesaid he was arrested and deported from India. In the meantime he was as we have already narrated prosecuted under the Foreigners Act 1946 but was acquitted on the ground that he was not a foreigner and therefore paragraph 7 of the Foreigners Order 1948 did not apply to him.