Chennai: A notice by the Indian embassy in Washington issued to a techie born in Sri Lanka, but illegally holding an Indian passport and residing in the US, was stayed by Madras high court on July 8.Justice Mohammed Shaffiq granted the interim relief to S Vivek Saravanamuthu from Chennai considering his submission that if the notice is complained with, it would result in the invalidation of his US work visa, disrupt his career and could possibly render him stateless.“Keeping in view the facts set out above, the authorities are directed to keep the notice dated June 18 in abeyance until July 22,” the court said.In his petition, Vivek wanted the court to direct the authorities to afford him a period of nine months to enable him to regularize status and obtain formal travel documentation from the appropriate Sri Lankan authorities, culminating in the safe and lawful surrender of his Indian passport.The petitioner is presently working in a information technology company in North Carolina, US and holds a green card holder. According to the petitioner, he was born in Colombo in 1982, the next year, his family migrated to Pudukottai in Tamil Nadu due to the civil war in the Island nation.After graduation from an engineering college in Trichy he applied for an Indian passport in 2004 based on alternative documents, as he did not possess a birth certificate in good faith, he said.
