MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Monday adjourned the hearing on actor Imran Khan Pal’s petition challenging a ‘leave India’ notice issued by the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO), Mumbai, to Tuesday at 3 pm.Khan represented by senior counsel VR Dhond and advocates Zulfiquar Memon and Parvez Memon, sought an adjournment, requesting that the matter be heard on Tuesday and the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said he had no objection to the matter being heard on Tuesday..Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared through video conferencing from Delhi, said he had no objection to the request.Khan, around 44, approached the high court to challenge an October 14 notice directing him to leave India by October 28. The notice was issued over his participation in a protest held in Mumbai on October 10 in support of the Cockroach Janata Party’s (CJP) agitation against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in Delhi.In his petition, Khan described the notice as “arbitrary, unreasoned and wholly misconceived”. He argued that it was issued without giving him a hearing and violated the principles of natural justice, as well as his fundamental rights to equality under Article 14 and life under Article 21 of the Constitution.Khan said he had been living in India since he was two years old.He e-filed his petition on Saturday. On the same day, the FRRO issued a fresh show-cause notice asking why action should not be taken against him under laws governing foreigners and Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) cardholders.The petition said merely reproducing the words of a statutory provision mechanically is not sufficient in law and cannot be countenanced. It said the actor has been given the expulsion order solely because an FIR has been registered, which is at the stage of investigation. It said the offences alleged in the FIR are all bailable and none carries punishment exceeding two years in jail.It said no chargesheet has been filed yet, no court has taken cognisance, and no charge has been framed. “Even if a chargesheet were to be filed, the court may decline to take cognisance. If it takes cognisance, the petitioner may be discharged. If charges are framed, he may be acquitted. To expel the petitioner at the very threshold of that process is to visit the ultimate consequence upon a mere allegation and to condemn him, in effect, on the mere recording by police of an intimation of the commission of an offence,” it said.The high court is scheduled to hear the matter at 3 pm on Tuesday.
