US imposes sanction on Pak; may deny visas to Pakistanis
Washington: The US has imposed sanctions on Pakistan after Islamabad refused to take back its citizen deportees and visa over-stayers from America, warning that it may withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning from its senior officials.
The State Department on Friday said that consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged as of now but as a result of such a sanction mentioned in a Federal Register notification dated April 22, the US may withhold visas of Pakistanis beginning with its senior officials.
Pakistan is the latest to join the list of 10 nations that have been imposed with sanctions under a US law according to which countries refusing to take back deportees and visa over-stayers will be denied American visas.
Notably eight of these countries have been slapped with such visa sanctions under the Trump administration. Two of them Ghana and Pakistan have been included in the list this year.
The other countries include Guyana in 2001, the Gambia in 2016, Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, and Sierra Leone in 2017, Burma and Laos in 2018.
Under Section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State is required to discontinue granting immigration or non-immigrant visas to a nation upon receiving notice from the Homeland Security Secretary that the country has denied or is unreasonably delaying accepting a citizen, subject, national or resident of that country.
The State Department tried to downplay the impact of the sanctions on Pakistan.
"Consular operations in Pakistan remain unchanged, a State Department Spokesperson told PTI when asked about the federal register notification.
This is a bilateral issue of ongoing discussion between the US and Pakistani governments and we are not going to get into the specifics at this time, the spokesperson added.
Former Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, feels that this will make things difficult for Pakistanis.
This measure will create hardship for Pakistanis who want or need to travel to the US and could have been avoided if Pakistani authorities had not ignored American requests to respect their legal requirements for deportation, Haqqani told PTI, days after the federal register notification.
He said that Pakistan's refusal to accept it's citizen deported from the US is not new.
Pakistan's refusal to accept every Pakistani citizen deported from the US is not new. It seems that the US is no longer willing to overlook a wide range of official Pakistani behaviour. Bonhomie has been replaced by sanctions and restrictions based on Islamabad's policy decisions, Haqqani said.
While the law in this regard has been under existence since 1996, it is only in last several years that there had been increasing demand from lawmakers towards its enforcement against countries that had refused to accept deportees and visa over-stayers.
In the last few years, India has been taking such deportees on special planes at regular intervals.
The Trump administration after coming to power had said that it will strictly enforce such provisions by denying visas to people from those countries that refuse it accepting deportees and visa over-stayers.
While section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act was used only twice before 2017, the Trump Administration has been effective in using this provision on many countries, including Pakistan.
However, the State Department federal register notification indicates that the number of visa denial under this sanction is far less.
Since the law was modified to cover non-immigrant visas in 1996, 318 visa applicants have been affected, the notification said.
During this same time period, tens of millions of aliens have received non-immigrant visas including, collectively, millions of applicants from the 10 countries affected, the notification said.
The Federal Register notification said that there is no set formula, though, notably State has never issued a blanket refusal for visas from the country in question.
For some countries, sanctions begin by targeting officials who work in the ministries responsible for accepting the return of that country's nationals with escalation scenarios that target family members of those officials and potentially officials of other ministries and then other categories of applicants if initial sanctions do not prove effective at encouraging greater cooperation on removals by the targeted government, the notification said.
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Constitution bench verdict binding on benches of lesser strength, says SC
New Delhi (PTI): A judgement of a Constitution bench would be "binding" on benches of lesser strength, the Supreme Court has said while recalling an April 2022 verdict delivered by it.
In its order dated April 7, 2022, the apex court had held that a panchayat cannot claim ownership of the land which has been taken from the real owners from their permissible ceiling limits under the land law in Haryana.
The apex court had consequently said panchayats can only manage and control the land which has been taken from the owners and cannot claim title.
"It is pertinent to note here that for the land taken from the proprietors by applying pro-rata cut from the permissible ceiling limits of the proprietors, management and control alone vests with the panchayat but such vesting of management and control is irreversible and the land would not revert to the proprietors for redistribution as the common purposes for which land has been carved out not only include the present requirements but the future requirements as well," it had said.
The top court had delivered the verdict on a batch of appeals against a full bench verdict of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had examined the legality of sub-section 6 of Section 2(g) of the Haryana Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961.
In a judgement delivered on Thursday, a bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta said that when the high court verdict rested on the law laid down by the apex court's Constitution bench in 1966, "the least that was expected" of the court in the judgement under review was to explain as to why the high court was wrong in relying on the 1966 verdict.
"No law is required to state that a judgement of the Constitution bench would be binding on the benches of a lesser strength. Bhagat Ram (1966 verdict) has been decided by a strength of five judges, this court having a bench strength of two judges could not have ignored the law laid down by the Constitution bench in paragraph 5 in Bhagat Ram," the bench said.
The top court delivered its verdict on a plea seeking review of the April 2022 judgement.
It said that "ignoring" the law laid down by the Constitution bench and taking a view totally contrary to the same would amount to a material error, manifest on the face of the order.
"Ignoring the judgement of the Constitution bench, in our view, would undermine its soundness. The review could have been allowed on this short ground alone," it said.
While allowing the review petition, the bench said, "The judgement and order of this court dated April 7, 2022... is recalled and the appeal is restored to file."
The bench directed that the appeal be listed for hearing on August 7.
The top court observed it was settled that the review would be permissible only if there was a mistake or error apparent on the face of the record or any other sufficient reason was made out.
"The review of the judgement would be permissible only if a material error, manifest on the face of the order, undermines its soundness or results in miscarriage of justice. We are also aware that such an error should be an error apparent on the face of the record and should not be an error which has to be fished out and searched," it noted.
