Case Document

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HCAL 1122/2022

[2026] HKCFI 5326

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 1122 OF 2022

BETWEEN

	Mandeep Singh	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 29-year-old national of India who entered Hong Kong illegally in February 2021 and was arrested by police on 16 April 2021. After he was referred to the Immigration Department for investigation, he raised a non-refoulement claim for protection on the basis that if he returned to India he would be harmed or killed by the sons of his late paternal uncle over a land dispute in his home village between his late uncle and his father. He was subsequently released on recognizance pending the determination of his claim.

2.The Applicant was born and raised in Village Paswal, District Gurdaspur, Punjab, India. After leaving school he assisted in his father’s farming on his father’s farmland inherited from his grandfather in equal share with his paternal uncle who was also a farmer but coveted his father’s share in the farmland, and of which his uncle often demanded his father to transfer to him for his sole use, but which was refused by his father and led to frequent conflicts between their 2 families.

3.In around 2018 the Applicant took up the sole responsibility of his father’s farmland due to his father’s old age and poor health, whereupon his uncle and sons directed their threats against the Applicant, and after having been assaulted by his uncle’s sons on several occasions while working on his father’s farmland, the Applicant became fearful for his safety and in early 2021 fled from his home village to New Delhi.

4.However, later when he heard that his whereabouts in New Delhi had been discovered by his uncle who was sending his sons there to kill him, the Applicant decided that it was no longer safe to remain in India and therefore departed the country in February 2021 for China, and from there he later sneaked into Hong Kong, and upon his arrest by the police he then raised his non-refoulement claim for protection, for which he completed a Non-refoulement Claim Form (“NCF”) on 18 October 2021 and attended a screening interview before the Immigration Department with legal representation from the Duty Lawyer Service (“DLS”).

5.By a Notice of Decision dated 6 January 2022 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 the 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”).

6.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 the sons of his late uncle who had since passed away 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, that in any event it was a private land dispute between his father and his uncle’s sons and within their 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 3.2 million square kilometers that it would not be unduly harsh for the Applicant as an able-bodied young adult with working experience to move to other areas of the country away from his home district in large cities such as Mumbai or Bengaluru where it would be difficult if not impossible for anyone to locate him.

7.On 20 January 2022 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 2 September 2022 before the Board during which he gave evidence and answered questions raised of his claim by the Adjudicator for the Board. On 15 September 2022 his appeal was dismissed by the Board which also confirmed the Director’s decision.

8.In its decision[1] the Board accepted the Applicant’s claim of threats from the sons of his late uncle over their land dispute in his home village but found no reliable evidence of any real intention of them to seriously harm or kill him other than just angry words and empty threats, and that in any event it was a private land dispute between them and within their family only without any official involvement that reasonable internal relocation alternatives would be available to the Applicant upon his return to India 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.

9.On 20 October 2022 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 forth any proper ground for his intended challenge, nor did he request any oral hearing for his application. 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.

10.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.

11.In the Applicant’s case, the fact is that it has been established by both the Director and the Board in their respective decisions that the risk of harm in his claim if real is a localized one and that it is not unreasonable or unsafe for him to relocate to other parts 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.

12.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.

13.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, I therefore refuse to grant leave and accordingly dismiss his application.

Dated the 28^th day of September 2026

(Joyce Ooi)
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 his 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 28 September 2026 Mandeep Singh 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 28 September 2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board Putative Respondent’s ref. no.: USM 19759 Director of Immigration Putative Interested Party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 1884/21 (formerly as RBCZ 11048/21) (T4I132) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)