Court summons Interior Minister, GIS Comptroller General over deportation of Indian businessman
The Accra High Court has ordered the Comptroller-General of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Mr Kwame Asuah Takyi, and the Minister of the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery, to appear before it on August 25, 2017, to justify why a temporary residence permit should not be issued to an Indian businessman, Mr Ashok Kumar Sivaram.
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The order followed an application for mandamus filed by Mr Sivaram, who was deported from the country on June 1, 2017.
At last Monday’s hearing, the lawyer for Mr Sivaram, Mr Gary Nimako Marfo, prayed the court to order Mr Takyi and Mr Dery to grant his client a six-month temporary residence and work permit pending the determination of the application.
Such a move, counsel argued, would also enable his client to fight for his business interests in the country, on which there was a case currently before the Commercial Division of the Accra High Court.
At that point, the presiding judge, Mrs Justice Naa Adoley Azu, asked counsel where his client was, to which he replied that he had information that his client was in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.
The judge then ordered hearing notices to be served on Mr Dery and Mr Takyi to appear before the court on August 25, 2017.
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Application for mandamus
In his application, which named Mr Takyi and Mr Dery as respondents, the businessman is praying for the restoration of his residence and work permit, which was cancelled by the GIS following his deportation on June 1, 2017, on the basis that his deportation was quashed by the High Court on July 31, 2017.
He is also praying for an order restraining Mr Takyi and Mr Dery, their agents, servants or anyone acting on their authority from “making any attempt to deport him from Ghana’’ or “harassing him until his application is determined’’.
Mr Sivaram claimed that the GIS had refused to accept the money he paid as the requisite fee for his application for visa on arrival which he claimed was “a deliberate attempt to decline his application’’.
He, therefore, wants the court to declare the purported action by the GIS as “unfair, unreasonable and not supported by law’’ and order for the GIS to accept the money and process his application for visa on arrival.
Legal warfare
Mr Sivaram, Mr Takyi and Mr Dery have been embroiled in a legal warfare following Mr Sivaram’s deportation from the country by the GIS on June 1, 2017, in compliance with a deportation order signed by the Interior Minister on May 15, 2017.
Mr Sivaram has since petitioned President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo over what he claimed to be a deliberate attempt by Mr Dery and Mr Takyi to deport him to aid his business partner to take over his (Mr Sivaram’s) company in the country.
The GIS has, however, refuted Mr Sivaram’s claims, explaining that neither the service nor Mr Dery had any interest in Mr Sivaram’s feud with his business partner.
Per the deportation order, Mr Sivaram was deported because he was alleged to have presented a fake marriage certificate in support of his application for a Ghanaian citizenship.