LONDON: Tens of thousands of mostly-Indian immigrants on Tuesday won the right to live and work in Britain after a British court ruled that retrospective changes made to their visas were illegal.
The landmark ruling by Justice Sir George Newman followed a legal challenge mounted by the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) Forum, a pressure group consisting mostly of Indian migrants.
In his judgment, Newman said the terms of the original scheme “should be honoured” and that there was no good reason why those already on the scheme should not enjoy the benefits of it as originally offered to them.
“Good administration and straightforward dealing with the public require it. Not to restrain the impact of the changes would, in my judgment, give rise to conspicuous unfairness and and abuse of power,” he added.
The new rules would have made it harder for skilled migrants to remain in Britain and it was feared that up to 90% of them already in the country would be forced to leave.
The Forum, which won the case, represented 49,000 highly skilled workers including doctors, engineers, technocrats — mostly from India — who had come to the UK under one of the most popular schemes introduced in January 2002 to attract “high human capital individuals”.
Existing HSMP visa holders would have had to re-qualify under a new points based system, which makes it mandatory for applicants to have earned at least 40,000 pounds in the previous year and awards more points to younger applicants —conditions that the HSMP Forum described as “unfair”.
Amit Kapadia, executive director of HSMP Forum, which spearheaded the legal challenge, said the judgment vindicated their belief that justice would prevail despite sustained “unfair and discriminatory” treatment by the Immigration Ministry. He said the ministry was obsessed with defending their decision, and they were left with no choice but to aproach the court.
