Mumbai, November 22: To get visa extension for a stay in India is not a fundamental right of foreigners, the Bombay High Court has ruled.
Dismissing an application filed by Israeli businessman Hillel Shapira (50) seeking extension of his business visa, a division bench of Justices B H Marlapalle and R Y Ganoo yesterday upheld union government’s decision to deport him.
“No foreigner, whose request for a visa or its renewal has been rejected, has the right to be heard,” the court said.
“Once Shapira’s application for visa extension has been rejected, the inevitable result is that he has to leave this country and does not have any vested right for extension of his visa,” the court said.
Shapira came to India on a business visa in 1996. He set up Daikini Health Food Private Ltd in Pune, and got his visa extended from time to time.
But in April this year, the authorities refused him extension, and ordered him to leave.
Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, his lawyer, argued that Shapira ought to have been given an opportunity to be heard.
But High Court held that as a foreign national, he did not have any right to be heard. Citing a Supreme Court judgement, judges said that under the Foreigners’ Act, centre has absolute power to expel foreign nationals.
–PTI