Case Document

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HCAL 253/2026

[2026] HKCFI 5885

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LIST NO 253 OF 2026

BETWEEN

	Tej Pal	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 (Order 53, rule 3)

Following:

consideration of the documents only; or

consideration of the documents and the applicant being absent in open court;

Order by Deputy High Court Judge Michael WONG:

1. On this court’s own motion, the name of the putative respondent be amended to “Torture Claims Appeal Board”, and the name of the putative interested party be amended to “Director of Immigration”.

2. The applicant’s application for leave to apply for judicial review be dismissed.

Observations for the applicant:

The Leave Application

1.By way of Form 86 dated 9 January 2026 and filed on 26 January 2026, the applicant applied for leave to apply for judicial review (“the Leave Application”) in respect of the decision of the Torture Claims Appeal Board (“the Board”) dated 17 December 2025 (“the Board’s Decision”). The Board’s Decision can be viewed in the following hyperlink:-

https://legalref.judiciary.hk/doc/judg/html/vetted/other/en/2026/HCAL000253_2026_files/the_Board's_Decision.pdf

2.The Board found that the applicant’s claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all the applicable grounds under the Unified Screening Mechanism (“the USM”). Hence, the Board rejected the applicant’s appeal/petition against the decision of the Director of Immigration (“the Director”) dated 8 October 2025 and confirmed the same, which rejected the applicant’s non-refoulement claim.

Amendments

3.In Form 86, the applicant named “CASE REFUSE BY TORTURE CLAiM’S PETITION offICE” as the putative respondent, and “TORTURE CLAIM’S APPEAL BOARD” as the putative interested party, when the Board should be the putative respondent, and the Director should be the putative interested party.

4.Thus, this court makes an order on its own motion to amend the name of the putative respondent to “Torture Claims Appeal Board”, and the name of the putative interested party to “Director of Immigration”.

The applicant’s case

5.It is not necessary for this court to repeat the details of the applicant’s case here as the same were set out in the Board’s Decision, which can be viewed in the hyperlink above.

6.In sum, the applicant claimed for non-refoulement protection because if refouled to India, he would be harmed or killed by his paternal cousins named Manish, Dinesh, Rahul and Komal (“the paternal cousins”) and his neighbours named Amrish, Rajan and Sumit (“the neighbours”) due to a land dispute.

Oral hearing

7.The applicant requested for an oral hearing of the Leave Application. However, the applicant was absent at the hearing on 15 October 2026.

8.As held in Re Abdus Salam [2019] HKCA 1091, an application for leave to bring judicial review should not be dismissed for want of prosecution merely because the applicant failed to attend the oral hearing of the leave application. The correct approach is to treat the applicant as having withdrawn the request for a hearing by reason of the absence at the hearing, and to proceed to determine the leave application on its merits.

9.Thus, this court will proceed to consider the merits of the Leave Application based on the written materials before this court.

Grounds for judicial review

10.The applicant is required to identify clearly the grounds for the intended judicial review (see Ho Loy & Another v Director of Environmental Protection, HCAL 21 of 2015, dated 22.12.2016).

11.The applicant did not identify any ground for the intended judicial review in Form 86, nor in his supporting affirmation dated 26 January 2026. In the said affirmation, the applicant merely stated that he could not go back to his country, his life was still in danger and the decision was not “fare” [sic].

Discussion

12.First of all, the applicant’s danger in his home country had been assessed but rejected by the Board. If the applicant intends to challenge the Board’s finding of facts, it is not permissible in an application for judicial review unless there were errors of law, procedural unfairness or irrationality in the Board’s Decision.

13.The applicant’s mere comment that the Board’s Decision was not fair cannot help him either. He did not state why the Board’s Decision was not fair, or how the Board erred in its assessment of his non-refoulement claim and/or his appeal/petition.

14.The role of the court in judicial review is not to re-assess the non-refoulement claims afresh. The primary decision-makers in a claim for non-refoulement are the Director and the Board. They alone assess the evidence and find facts including those relating to the matters allegedly giving rise to the non-refoulement claim, risk of harm, availability of state protection and viability of internal relocation. The court will scrutinize the Board’s decision and intervene by way of judicial review only for errors of law, procedural unfairness or irrationality (see Nupur Mst v Director of Immigration [2018] HKCA 524).

15.Thus, this court will examine and scrutinize the Board’s Decision for any errors of law, procedural unfairness and irrationality, despite the lack of any valid ground being advanced by the applicant for the intended judicial review.

16.In assessing the applicant’s appeal/petition, the Board held an oral hearing on 2 December 2025 through the Video Conferencing System at Castle Peak Bay Immigration Centre. The applicant was present and was thus given the opportunity to present his case to the Board.

17.As can be seen from the Board’s Decision, every aspect of the applicant’s case had been duly and carefully considered by the Board.

18.The Board laid out its analysis of the information and evidence given by the applicant in paragraphs 15 to 28 of the Board’s Decision. In short, the Board found that the applicant was never physically harmed by the paternal cousins or the neighbours. The applicant did not follow up with his complaints to the police. The land in dispute remained unoccupied for years since the dispute started in 2021, and the applicant’s family in India remained unharmed.

19.The Board also provided its findings of the applicant’s case against all the applicable grounds under the USM in paragraphs 30 to 43 of the Board’s Decision. The Board found that the paternal cousins and the neighbours were not acting in an official capacity in their dispute with the applicant. No acts or incidents of violence were present since the dispute started in 2021 to show that the applicant’s danger was personal and present, nor was there any underlying action taken to either force the selling of the land or the transfer of the same by the paternal cousins or the neighbours over the period of time from 2021 to January 2025 when the applicant came to Hong Kong.

20.The Board also found no real evidence to support that the paternal cousins and the neighbours, who had connections with the Bharatiya Janata Party and Indian National Congress Party, had bribed the police and the police were colluding with or controlled by them. The applicant’s fear of ill-treatment did not fall within the definition of persecution in that it was only a case of private land dispute.

21.Furthermore, the Board had given full reasons in paragraphs 44 to 50 of the Board’s Decision for its finding that state protection in the applicant’s country would be available in his case.

22.The Board had also provided full and justified reasons in paragraphs 51 to 53 of the Board’s Decision for its conclusion that the applicant would have no difficulty to lead a normal life in a province or city such as Mumbai and Ahmedabad other than his own village in order to avoid the paternal cousins and the neighbours.

23.Thus, the Board concluded that the applicant’s claim for non-refoulement protection failed on all the applicable grounds under the USM.

24.The finding of facts, including the assessment of evidence, country of origin information and risk of harm, was solely within the ambit of the Board in dealing with the applicant’s appeal/petition. The Board was entitled to make its own decision. This court finds nothing wrong or unreasonable in the way the Board reached its conclusion.

25.Having rigorously examined the Board’s Decision and the evidence with anxious scrutiny, this court is satisfied that the Board had correctly set out the law and key legal principles relating to the applicable grounds under the USM, the burden of proof and the standard of proof. The Board also correctly identified the issues and observed a very high standard of fairness. This court could detect no error of law, procedural unfairness or irrationality in the Board’s Decision. The Board’s Decision does satisfy the enhanced Wednesbury test, ie it is not Wednesbury unreasonable or irrational for the Board to reach its decision.

26.As held by the Court of Final Appeal in Po Fun Chan v Winnie Cheung (2007) 10 HKCFAR 676, for the court to grant leave to apply for judicial review, the claim has to be a reasonably arguable claim which enjoys realistic prospects of success. It is the view of this court that the applicant has failed to establish such a claim and hence leave must be refused.

Conclusion

27.For reasons aforesaid, the Leave Application is dismissed.

Dated the 21^st day of October 2026

( Gladys LEE )
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/Handed to the applicant/the applicant’s solicitors on: 21/10/2026 Applicant’s ref. no: Nil		Sent/Handed 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: 21/10/2026 Torture Claims Appeal Board/Non-refoulement Claims Petition Office Putative respondent’s ref. no.: USM 27379 Director of Immigration Putative interested party’s ref. no.: QA T/C 1683/25 (Formerly RBCZ 5001622/25) Department of Justice, Senior Assistant Law Officer (Civil Law) (Civil Litigation Unit 2)