Sunil Kumar v. Torture Claims Appeal Board

HCAL 780/2024

[2026] HKCFI 3670

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 780 OF 2024

Application for Leave to Apply for Judicial Review

NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (Ord 53 r 3)

Following:

Order by Deputy High Court Judge Bruno Chan:

The application for leave to apply for Judicial Review be dismissed.

Observations for the Applicant:

1.The Applicant is a 29-year-old national of India who entered Hong Kong illegally on 20 April 2020 and more than 4 months later on 8 September 2020 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 his former girlfriend’s family who disapproved of their relationship. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Gonder, Karnal, Haryana, India where he dated his girlfriend Rabina, but due to their different religions that their relationship was not approved by her family.

3.One day in March 2019 he was confronted by Rabina’s elder brother and his friends who demanded that he ceased his relationship with Rabina or else they would kill him.

4.Despite such warning the Applicant continued to see Rabina, and shortly thereafter one day while on his way home the Applicant was struck from behind by a car driven by Rabina’s brother so that he was injured and was subsequently taken to the hospital for medical treatments.

5.After the attack the Applicant became fearful for his life and therefore stopped seeing Rabina and kept a low profile, but one day in December 2019 when he ran into her elder brother and friends, they threatened him again and proceeded to beat him with wooden sticks, but he managed to flee from the scene without serious injuries.      

6.As he feared of further attacks from Rabina’s family notwithstanding the fact that he had by then ceased his relationship with Rabina, the Applicant felt that it was no longer safe to remain in India, and so on 30 December 2019 he departed for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong and subsequently raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 15 April 2021 and attended screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation.             

7.By a Notice of Decision dated 29 June 2021 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”).

8.In his decision the Director took into account all the relevant circumstances of the Applicant’s claim and assessed the level of risk of harm from his former girlfriend’s family 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 his former girlfriend’s family to seriously harm or kill him other than to deter him from seeing her and that even on his own admission that they had ceased their relationship since December 2019, that in any event it was a private and personal dispute between him and his former 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”) shows that reasonable internal relocation alternatives are available in India with a large population of 1.3 billion people spread across a vast territory of more than 2.9 million square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied young adult to move to other areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Hyderabad where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

9.On 12 July 2021 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 18 October 2022 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board.  On 8 May 2024 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

10.In its decision[1] 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 his former girlfriend’s family due to their disapproval of their relationship that caused him to leave his country to come to Hong Kong to seek protection, that even if his claimed threats from his former girlfriend’s family were true that there was no reliable evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill him other than to stop their relationship which even on his own admission had ceased since December 2019, and that in any event it was a private and personal dispute between him and his former 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 by anyone that his claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all applicable grounds.    

11.On 16 May 2024 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 without realizing that he was tortured at the behest of the state law enforcement agencies and politicians that the state would be rendered liable to the Applicant by cause of the state and its public officials failing to provide reasonable protection for its citizens under the duty of due diligence;

(3) That the Adjudicator acted unreasonably 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.       

12.These are however all just bare and vague assertions of the Applicant containing a few key words or phrases but without any necessary or relevant 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 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 or what evidence is there to suggest that the Applicant has ever been tortured by law enforcement agencies or politicians when on the factual basis of even his own case that it was a private and personal dispute between him and his former girlfriend’s family only without any official involvement or political element at all.  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.

13.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.

14.In the Applicant’s case, the Board rejected his claim for the thorough and detailed analysis and reasoning set out in its decision with the benefit of hearing him in his oral evidence and his answers to questions raised of his claim, and in the absence of any error of law 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 to challenge the finding of the Board.

15.Furthermore, the fact is that it has also been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decisions that the risk of harm in the Applicant’s 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.                

16.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.

17.Moreover, the Applicant has recently in writing requested to withdraw his application as his issues in his home country have been resolved that he now wants to return to India as soon as possible.

18.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, and in view of his latest confirmation of no more issue for him to return to his home country, I accordingly dismiss his leave application.

Dated the 2^nd day of July 2026

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