WP(C) 774/2015 & CM No.1352/2015 (interim relief)

PREFATORY FACTS

1. Every once in a while, citizens going about their usual and ordinary business, get entangled with the State apparatus; sometimes for good reason and at times unjustifiably so. In such a situation, an aggrieved citizen’s remedy, quite naturally, is to approach the courts of law for appropriate relief. These remedies at most times are financially debilitating and not within the means of every aggrieved party.

1.1 The instant matter is a case in point. The petitioner (hereinafter referred to as Ms. Pillai) chose to travel to the United Kingdom, in the early hours of the morning of 11.01.2015, by an Air India flight bearing no.AI-115. She was, however, stopped at the immigration for reasons that I shall, shortly, advert to in the course of my discussion.

1.2 Suffice it to state (at this stage), the concerned immigration officer proceeded to endorse, Ms. Pillai’s passport with an annotation “off load”. Having not been supplied with any reasons, an indignant Ms. Pillai shot off (in my view quite correctly as would be evident from facts delineated hereafter) a letter of even date i.e., 11.01.2015 to the Secretary