Mumbai: Actor Imran Khan Pal (44) filed a petition in the Bombay High Court Saturday challenging a “leave India notice” issued to him by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office for participating in a protest here on Oct 10 in support of the CJP’s anti-CEC stir in Delhi. Khan, a US national, having an OCI registration, has been asked to leave the country by Oct 28.The notice is “arbitrary, unreasoned and wholly misconceived’’ and against principles of natural justice as it was issued sans any hearing to him and flouts his fundamental rights to equality under Article 14 and to life under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, his petition said. He said he has been in India since he was two years old and says that he has “no association, affiliation or connection whatsoever with any organization or institution involved in organizing or participating in the protest against the incumbent Chief Election Commissioner.’’He e-filed his petition on Saturday and on the same day FRRO sent him a fresh notice, this time a show-cause notice asking why his Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status should not be cancelled.On the first notice, his petition says it is a “punitive executive action’’ where he is made a “scapegoat’’ and the notice appears to be for “extraneous’’ reasons to “stifle perceived dissent.’’ The plea will be mentioned likely on Monday. Articles 14 and 21 are constitutional guarantees available to even foreigners in India, it underscored. He was given neither reasons nor any reasonable opportunity to be heard and the notice was issued directly, Khan says in his petition.The FRRO has invoked the Immigration and Foreigners Act (IFA) 2025 to issue him the “leave India notice”. The notice is based on “purported contravention of uncited provisions of the IFA and the Rules and Orders’’ under it, the petition states. The petition says Khan has no criminal antecedents.Seeking urgent intervention of the HC to stay the notice, the petition filed through MZM Legal advocates Zulfiquar Memon, Parve Memon and Chirag Naik, says its potential enforcement would be a “mockery of the principles of natural justice and the Constitution of India’’.The notice is completely silent on any instances of the contravention in question; any underlying order or data forming the basis for issuance of the order or even any security report, the petition said. “The notice is not a bona fide exercise of statutory authority, but a manifestly arbitrary, high-handed and grossly disproportionate abuse of power, vitiated by complete non-application of mind. It seeks to single out the Petitioner as a convenient scapegoat and make an example of him in furtherance of extraneous personal agendas with which he has no connection, whether to appease public opinion or to stifle perceived dissent,’’ the petition says.The notice doesn’t disclose statutory contravention or the semblance of any due process, Khan’s petition adds.
