A FAILED asylum-seeker completed a 8,500-mile journey to Delhi and back yesterday after the Home Office deported him in defiance of a court order.
As the Sikh completed his round trip, a High Court judge demanded explanations from the Government over the deportation and why its legal team failed to attend court to explain their actions. Mr Justice Davis icily demanded that counsel and a Treasury solicitor come to court swiftly. “I require them to be here,” he said. “I have ordered they be present with solicitor and counsel to explain the position and I require their immediate attendance. I expect the Treasury solicitor to be here.”
He added that he had been given the impression that Treasury solicitors did not think the injunctions mattered because they had not been stamped with a seal from the Supreme Court. Mr Justice Davis also dismissed the Home Office’s explanation for not attending court as apparently a deliberate move to avoid appearing before him.
Jorowar Singh Dhillon, 34, a single man, spent only a few hours on the ground in Delhi airport before flying straight back to Britain after Mr Justice Davis demanded his immediate return.
In the High Court yesterday the judge made clear his anger with the immigration authorities and the Treasury solicitor over their handling of the case. He said that there had been a “prima facie failure” by the Home Office to comply with an order that he had issued against the removal of Mr Dhillon to Delhi.
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The round trip began despite the emergency court orders issued by telephone on Wednesday night aimed at stopping Mr Dhillon’s removal. Mr Dhillon even made a last-minute attempt to remain in Britain by telephoning his lawyer from aboard Virgin Airways flight VA300 only minutes before take-off, shortly after 10pm on Wednesday. But the stewardess on board was unable to act and the immigration security officer took no action.
The final travel and legal bill to the taxpayer for the failed removal of Mr Dhillon, who first came to Britain in 1996, is estimated to be at least £20,000. The figure includes the estimated £1,000 cost of airline tickets.
Mr Dhillon was detained when he reported to immigration officials in West London as he had done regularly since being refused asylum in 1996.
Efforts to expel him triggered a series of increasingly desperate legal moves involving injunctions granted by Mr Justice Davis over the telephone from his home in Richmond, West London.
The action began at about 4pm when lawyers for Mr Dhillon telephoned immigration staff and said that because he had applied under human rights legislation to stay, he could not be removed. They said that the immigration service refused to accept this as a reason for delaying removal even though the Home Office had not responded to his application, made in November 2003.
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At 7.15pm Amanda Jones, counsel for Mr Dhillon, sought and was given an injunction from the judge saying that he should not be put on the aircraft. He had listened to her argument for 15 minutes over the telephone.
Kenny Bhogal, solicitor for Mr Dhillon, told the immigration authorites about the court order over the telephone and by fax.
Mr Bhogal said: “Just before the plane took off, I got a phone call from Mr Dhillon. He was panicking but I was able to talk to a stewardess and immigration security official and tell them about the injunction. The security officer refused to do anything and refused to give his name.”
Within minutes of take-off, Miss Jones telephoned the judge again seeking a further injunction. At 11pm, Mr Justice Davis issued a second injunction that Mr Dhillon should not pass through immigration control at Delhi but should be returned immediately to Britain. The injunction also ordered government lawyers to be at the High Court at 2pm yesterday to explain how he had been deported despite a court order forbidding removal.
When the lawyers failed to turn up, the judge said sharply: “I directed they be here.”
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A flurry of telephone calls forced Catherine Barlow, from the Treasury solicitor’s department, and Caroline Neenan, counsel for the Home Office, to arrive at the court almost 90 minutes later. Miss Neenan, for the Home Office, explained the failure of lawyers to turn up on “confusion” in the Department. She said that because no date was stipulated on the judge’s order, the Home Office thought it applied to Wednesday and not yesterday.
The judge cut her short with the words: “That seems almost an intention to try to avoid appearing before me.”
A court hearing today will decide whether Mr Dhillon should remain in detention while his judicial review application is dealt with.
To ensure that there was no further confusion in the Home Office about the case, he added: “I make it clear. I want both sides here before me for a hearing which will not be before 12 noon.”
He said he would give Miss Neenan time to get evidence about how Mr Dhillon came to be removed from the country despite the injunction.
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Mr Dhillon arrived in Britain on July 10, 1996, and claimed asylum on July 15. His claim was rejected on September 23, 1996, and his appeal refused on September 4, 1998.
He claimed he would be persecuted if returned to India because he had been involved in the transportation of arms for Sikh separatists. But when his claim was dismissed, it was said he feared “prosecution not persecution”.
The Home Office issued no instructions for his removal and in November 2002 he sought to remain on human rights grounds. He claimed to be allowed to stay on the ground of right to a family life because he had been in England for seven years.
Last night the Home Office said that he had been removed in “error” and promised an investigation into how it had happened.