Toronto: A Federal court has upheld decisions to deny asylum claims filed by an Indian couple on the grounds that their argument they faced persecution if they returned to their home country due to their pro-Khalistan activity in Canada was “disingenuous”.
In a judgment published on Monday in Montreal, Federal court judge Benoit M Duchesne deemed “reasonable” the previous decisions taken by the Refugee Board of Canada’s Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) on February 15, 2024, and IRB’s Refugee Protection Division (RPD) three months earlier.
The principal applicant 38-year-old Amandeep Singh and the associate applicant 32-year-old Kanwaldeep Kaur had amended their original application before the RPD hearing to state they “had become supporters of Khalistan during their time in Canada and will be persecuted as a result of their new political activities if they are returned to India. They adduced protest photos and Punjab Referendum Khalistan voter registration cards issued by Sikhs for Justice,” the judgment noted.
The RPD had found that the chronology of the Singh’s “stated interest and participation in the independent Khalistan movement underscored a lack of genuineness in the movement itself”.
The RAD agreed with the RPD qualified the claim as “disingenuous and lacking good faith”. Those decisions were validated by the Federal court on Monday.
The claimants had originally stated they had been harassed by a neighbour over property and because of his political connections, by the police. “The Applicants claim that they were questioned, threatened, accused of militancy, beaten, that the Associate Applicant was sexually assaulted, and that her fingerprints and signature were taken,” according to the court document.
They fled to Delhi in 2018 and arrived in Canada in June 2018 using a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV).
However, these claims were also questioned by the RPD and the RAD.
Judge Duchesne ruled, “The Applicants have not established that the Decision is unreasonable. There is no basis for the Court to interfere with the RAD’s decision.”
The Federal government had opposed their claims on behalf of the Minister of Immigration and Citizenship.
While not commenting directly on this particular case, Mississauga-based immigration consultant Kanwar Sierah said that asylum claims meant “actually facing the threat of persecution”.
However, he said, with fraudulent claims clogging the system in Canada, the genuine claimants suffered.
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