JUDGEMENT

1. This petition has been filed by the petitioner challenging the Order dated 08.03.2013 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Impugned Order’) passed by the Secretary, Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Appellate Authority’), on an appeal filed by the petitioner herein under Section 23 of the Emigration Act, 1983 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Act’), which in turn challenged the Order dated 24.07.2012 passed by the Protector General of Emigrants (hereinafter referred to as ‘PGOE’) cancelling the Registration Certificate of the petitioner.

FACTUAL MATRIX

2. It is the case of the petitioner that the petitioner was granted a Registration Certificate on 07.06.2005, permitting the petitioner to work as a ‘Recruiting Agent’ to recruit workers for overseas employment during the validity of the certificate, which was upto 06.03.2020.

3. By a Notice dated 16th/19th December, 2011, the PGOE suspended the Registration Certificate of the petitioner and called upon the petitioner to show cause as to why the said suspension of the Registration Certificate granted in favour of the petitioner, be not extended. The said Show Cause Notice was based on three distinct allegations against the petitioner, which are as under:

i.

the complaint received from one Mrs.Dommati Kalavathi stating that her husband Shri Dommati Rajesh was deployed by the petitioner to work in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as a Driver, however, once he reached there, his sponsor insisted upon him to work as a Shepherd in the farm instead of the contracted job and he was later brutally murdered by his sponsor on 30.10.2011. It was alleged that the petitioner had charged a huge amount for his deployment.

ii.

that the petitioner had obtained emigration clearance for five emigrants whose visas were for the labourer category and their profession was shown other than the labourer category by the petitioner in his affidavit.

iii.

that the petitioner had submitted documents for obtaining emigration clearance on behalf of the seven companies named in the Show Cause Notice, which were not even registered in Oman and their telephone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail IDs were all bogus and fake.

4. The petitioner replied to the Show Cause Notice inter alia contending that, as far as the seven companies which were alleged to be fake, the documents had been received by the petitioner directly from the foreign companies and the petitioner did not have any mechanism to check the phone numbers, E-mail IDs, fax, etc., of these alleged companies. It was further stated that there were no complaints received from any worker deployed with these companies.

5. The PGOE, vide Order dated 24.07.2012, while observing that the petitioner herein is not a fit person to hold the Registration Certificate, cancelled the Registration Certificate of the petitioner and directed the petitioner to surrender the same.

6. The petitioner, aggrieved of the above order, filed an appeal before the Appellate Authority under Section 23 of the Act. The said appeal, however, has been dismissed by the Appellate Authority vide the Impugned Order dated 08.03.2013.

7. The Appellate Authority, while dismissing the appeal, found in favour of the petitioner as far as the first ground was concerned, by observing that it would be difficult to attach any blame directly to the petitioner for the murder of Shri Dommati Rajesh, as there were no allegations made during his lifetime and, in fact, held that the PGOE could have checked through the Indian Mission whether a case of murder had been registered or not in Saudi Arabia, or the petitioner could have showed that the same incident is a natural death by way of documents.

8. As far as the second and the third grounds are concerned, the Appellate Authority held that the petitioner had got emigration clearance for five persons on a false declaration and was guilty of knowingly recruiting manpower f