BENGALURU: Noting that the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) should stop being quixotic in granting extension of visas, the Karnataka High Court on Thursday said the officer should take care that genuine cases do not suffer by looking into how hospitals are issuing communications seeking medical or medical attendant visas.
Taking serious exception to the conduct of FRRO’s office in converting a medical attendant visa to a medical Visa without any valid documents, Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order, rejecting the petition filed by Mohammed Noman Ahmed Almeri, a Yemen national residing in the city, questioning FRRO’s rejection of his application for visa extension.
The court said the FRRO should enquire into the nature of the certificates issued by hospitals, seeking visa conversion to check whether there is truth in those communications because hospitals cannot be permitted to be hand in glove with citizens of other countries for extension of visas. The FRRO was also required to set its house in order and not convert visas without verification of documents, it added.
Deputy Solicitor General of India H Shanthi Bhushan submitted that the petitioner had played fraud with the FRRO. Though he is married and has three daughters in Yemen, he came to India and married an Indian citizen in 2019 only to make him eligible for consideration of his citizenship in India. He has never been an inpatient in any hospital to get a medical visa. He is into medical tourism business and has got hundreds of people from Yemen and employed them in most of the hospitals in the city, all without even having any right to stay in India, he argued while submitting documents in a sealed cover to the court.
Mohammed came to India when he was 39 years old and went back to his country in 2016. That ended his stay in India on a student visa. He again came back on a medical attendant visa. This time, he chose a route from Mumbai and not Bengaluru. The visa was valid for six months and it was converted to a medical visa.
The court said it is rather shocking how the FRRO converted a medical attendant visa to a medical visa without even looking into the documents or the list of ailments issued by a private hospital on JC Road in the city to the petitioner.
One of the documents submitted was a clinical laboratory report which shows the petitioner to have high cholesterol and borderline diabetes. If these documents could become a matter for conversion of visa, it shows that the authorities have converted it without even looking into the documents. It is further surprising as to how and on what parameters the medical visa is granted to the petitioner, the court wondered.