Case Document

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HCAL 2485/2024

[2026] HKCFI 5158

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 2485 OF 2024

BETWEEN

	Iqbal Mohammad Jawaid	Applicant
	and
	Torture Claims Appeal Board	Putative Respondent
	and
	Director of Immigration	Putative Interested Party

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 oral submissions by the Applicant in open court / the Applicant being absent in open court;

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 53-year-old national of India who arrived in Hong Kong on 19 April 2023 as a visitor with permission to remain as such up to 3 May 2023 when he did not depart and instead overstayed, and more than 5 months later on 30 October 2023 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 certain local supporters of the political party Bharatiya Janata Party (“BJP”) as he supported their rival All India Majlis-e-Ittahadul Muslimeen (“AIMIM”) and refused their demand to join BJP. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Mohalla Mirdan Toli, Bundelkhand Nawada. Binar, India. After leaving school he worked as a shop keeper to make his living, got married and raised a family with 4 children in his home district, and supported AIMIM regularly attended their local meetings and activities without holding any official post in the party.

3.For the next several years the Applicant received numerous threats from certain local group of BJP supporters demanding for him to stop supporting AIMIM and to join BJP, although such threats never materialized into physical ones.

4.In April 2023, the Applicant decided to take a sightseeing trip to Hong Kong, which he did on 19 April 2023, but during which he was informed by his wife in India on the phone that the same group of local BJP supporters had come to his home in India looking for him and threatened to kill him for having ignored their demands for years to join their party, whereupon his wife warned him not to return to India.

5.As a result, the Applicant became fearful for his life and therefore overstayed in Hong Kong and subsequently raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 20 May 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 25 July 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 assessed the level of risk of harm from those local BJP supporters 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 them to seriously harm or kill him other than to press him to leave AIMIM and to join their party or of any political reason for them to target him given that he was just an ordinary AIMIM supporter without holding any official post in the party, that in any event in the absence of 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 adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Mumbai or Chennai where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

8.On 1 August 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 28 October 2024 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 21 November 2024, his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

9.In its decision[1], the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of political disputes with certain local BJP supporters but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill him other than to press him to leave his party to join BJP, and that in any event in the absence of any official involvement that state or police protection would be available to the Applicant upon his return to India if resorted to 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.

10.On 16 December 2024, the Applicant filed his Form 86 for leave to apply for judicial review of the Board’s decision, but no ground for seeking relief was given in his Form or his supporting affirmation of the same date to which he just attached a copy of the decision but without putting forward any proper ground for his intended challenge. As such, and in the absence of any error of law or irrationality 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 for his intended challenge of the Board’s decision.

11.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.

12.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.

13.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 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.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.Moreover, the Applicant has recently on 23 July 2026 filed an affirmation requesting to withdraw his application as he no longer has any objection to the Board’s decision.

16.In the premises, 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 objection against the Board’s decision, I accordingly dismiss his leave application.

Dated the 15^th day of September 2026

(Chung Lai Fan, Christine)
for Registrar, High Court

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

Notes for the Applicant: If leave has been granted, the Applicant or the Applicant’s solicitors must:
a) serve on the respondent and such interested parties as may be directed by the Court the order granting leave and any directions given within 14 days after the leave was granted (Order 53, rule 4A); b) issue the originating summons within 14 days after the grant of leave and serve it in accordance with Order 53, rule 5; and c) supply to every other party copies of every affidavit which the Applicant proposes to use at the hearing, including the affidavit in support of the application for leave (Order 53, rule 6(5)).		Sent to the Applicant on 15 September 2026 Iqbal Mohammad Jawaid Applicant’s ref. no.: Nil.		Sent to the Putative Respondent / the Putative Respondent’s solicitors / such Putative Interested Parties as may be directed by the Court / the Putative Interested Parties’ solicitors on 15 September 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 24250 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 1756/24 (Formerly RBCZ 5000389/24) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)