Delhi HC Refuses OCI Cardholder Permission to Travel to India for Wedding, Finds No Strong Prima Facie Case Against Blacklisting Order

A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court declined interim relief to an 81-year-old OCI Cardholder barred from India, holding that complex questions about the interplay between the Citizenship Act and the Foreigners Act must be finally decided first.

The Delhi High Court, on 11 August 2026, rejected interim applications filed by Khalid Jahangir Qazi — an Overseas Citizen of India cardholder and medical practitioner based in the United States — seeking permission to travel to India to attend family wedding festivities in Srinagar scheduled between August and September 2026. The Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia, found that the Appellant had not established a sufficiently strong prima facie case to justify what would amount, in substance, to granting final relief at the interim stage. The bench also held that the balance of convenience, on the facts before it, favoured the Union of India, which had asserted sealed-cover national security material as the basis for both the cancellation of the Appellant's OCI card and a separate blacklisting order passed under Section 3 of the Foreigners Act, 1946.

Cancellation, Blacklisting, and the Journey to the Division Bench

Khalid Jahangir Qazi was issued an OCI card under the Citizenship Act, 1955. On 14 June 2022, the Consulate General of India, New York, issued a show cause notice proposing cancellation of the card on the ground of alleged “involvement in anti-India activities.” The Appellant replied on 2 July 2022, stating that no material had been furnished to him and requesting disclosure along with a personal hearing.

On 12 May 2023, the Union passed a Cancellation Order under Section 7D(e) of the Citizenship Act, citing “anti-India / pro-Pakistan / propaganda inimical to sovereignty, integrity & security of India.” The Appellant challenged that order by filing W.P.(C) 7755/2023 before a learned Single Judge of this Court, which stayed the Cancellation Order on 30 May 2023.

Despite the stay, the Appellant was denied immigration clearance when he arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport on 2 August 2023. The Single Judge then intervened by a specific order permitting him to enter India, and he remained in the country from 4 August 2023 to 20 October 2023.

A separate complication emerged in May 2024, when the Union disclosed in reply to a further application that a blacklisting order had been passed against the Appellant under the Foreigners Act on the ground of “pro Kashmiri separatist activities & anti-India propaganda / lobbying.” The Appellant filed a second writ petition, W.P.(C) 8873/2024, seeking to set aside the Blacklisting Order. The Single Judge dismissed the urgent interim prayer in that petition on 3 July 2024 after perusing sealed-cover material supplied by the Union, observing that the matter required fuller consideration before any permission to travel could be given.

On 12 November 2024, the Single Judge delivered the impugned judgment setting aside the show cause notice, the Cancellation Order, and the Blacklisting Order, and directed the Union to issue a fresh show cause notice specifying the grounds for any intended restriction or cancellation. Both sides challenged this judgment. The Appellant filed LPA 1239/2024 and LPA 1243/2024; the Union filed LPA 1245/2024 and LPA 1246/2024. All four appeals are listed for final hearing on 24 August 2026.

The Appellant then approached the Supreme Court by filing Special Leave to Appeal (C) No. 25989/2026, seeking permission to travel for the wedding. The Supreme Court, by order dated 3 August 2026, disposed of the petition by requesting the High Court to decide the interim prayer “expeditiously and preferably within one week.” The Division Bench accordingly heard the applications on 6 and 10 August 2026 and reserved orders, which were delivered on 11 August 2026.

The Central Legal Debate: Citizenship Act Safeguards Versus Foreigners Act Power

The core dispute before the Division Bench on the interim applications was whether the procedural safeguards in Section 7D of the Citizenship Act — in particular the statutory proviso requiring a reasonable opportunity of hearing before cancellation of OCI registration — apply equally when the Union proceeds against an OCI cardholder under Section 3 of the Foreigners Act by blacklisting.

The Appellant's senior counsel, Mr. Parag Tripathi, argued that an OCI cardholder occupies a “midway” status distinct from that of an ordinary foreigner, backed by statutory rights and privileges under Section 7B of the Citizenship Act, including parity with non-resident Indians in several professions. He contended that Section 7D is the special statutory mechanism for action against OCI cardholders and that the Union cannot bypass its procedural requirements by invoking the Foreigners Act on the same material and same grounds as the Cancellation Order. To permit the Union to do so, he submitted, would render the safeguards in Section 7D nugatory.

He also pointed to the fact that the Respondents had never pleaded that the material underlying the Blacklisting Order was distinct from the material underlying the Cancellation Order, and that neither the show cause notice in 2022 nor the Blacklisting Order were accompanied by sufficient particulars to enable the Appellant to meet the case against him. He relied on Supreme Court decisions including Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd v Union of India, (2023) 13 SCC 401, to argue that even on national security grounds, a court must assess whether non-disclosure is genuinely necessary and whether a reasonable person would draw the same inference from the available material.

The Union's Additional Solicitor General, Mr. Chetan Sharma, and senior counsel, Mr. Apoorv Kurup, argued the contrary. Section 2(a) of the Foreigners Act defines a “foreigner” as any person who is not a citizen of India, a category that unambiguously includes OCI cardholders. Section 3 of the Foreigners Act, they submitted, is a standalone provision that does not require prior notice, hearing, or disclosure of reasons. The Citizenship Act confers privileges on OCI cardholders but does not remove them from the operation of the Foreigners Act. They relied on Section 16 of the Foreigners Act, which states that the Act operates in addition to, and not in derogation of, other law.

The Union further pointed to Section 7 of the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, which is pari materia with Section 3 of the Foreigners Act and was enacted without incorporating the Section 7D safeguards, thereby reflecting a legislative choice to keep the two regimes separate. The ASG also submitted that disclosure of the sealed-cover material would itself compromise national security by revealing intelligence collection methods and enabling the Appellant to modify his conduct accordingly.

How the Division Bench Reasoned on the Interim Prayer

Justice Tejas Karia, writing the order, framed five interconnected legal questions for final hearing: the interplay between the Citizenship Act and the Foreigners Act; whether the Citizenship Act creates a special statutory regime for OCI cardholders that prevails over the Foreigners Act; whether OCI cardholders fall within the Section 3 power; whether the Section 7D hearing requirement applies to blacklisting proceedings; and, if so, what the scope of disclosure must be when privilege is claimed on national security grounds.

On the interim prayer, the bench applied the standard three-part test — prima facie case, balance of convenience, irreparable injury — but applied it at a heightened threshold, because granting the interim relief would, in substance, amount to granting the final relief sought in the appeals.

The bench noted that, at the prima facie stage, the Citizenship Act and the Foreigners Act “appear to operate in distinct spheres” and that the Section 7D safeguards “cannot, therefore, be automatically imported into proceedings under the Foreigners Act.” It found reinforcement in Section 7 of the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, which reproduces Section 3 of the Foreigners Act without incorporating Section 7D safeguards, indicating a deliberate legislative choice. The bench was careful to describe this as a prima facie view, expressly reserving the question for the final hearing.

The bench also examined the Appellant's contention that the sealed-cover material could not be serious because the Single Judge had set aside both the Cancellation Order and the Blacklisting Order. It rejected this argument. The same Single Judge had, on 3 July 2024, declined the Appellant's earlier travel prayer after examining the sealed-cover material, treating it as sufficient to refuse entry. The impugned judgment of November 2024 set aside the orders on procedural grounds relating to natural justice but expressly left open the substantive validity of the material. The bench held that the Appellant could not draw comfort from the setting aside of the orders when the underlying material remained unaddressed on the merits.

On balance of convenience, the bench held that the Union, which is entrusted with safeguarding national security, sovereignty, and public interest, held the advantage where sensitive intelligence material was in issue and had not been adjudicated. The argument that the Appellant was in a stronger position after the impugned judgment than in 2023 — when he was allowed to enter — was specifically rejected. In 2023, the stay of the Cancellation Order alone was in place; the blacklisting issue had not arisen. After the Blacklisting Order came to light, the Single Judge refused the travel prayer in July 2024. That refusal had not been interfered with. The bench also noted that the Appellant himself had challenged the impugned judgment, so he could not rely on the Union's non-compliance with the direction to issue a fresh show cause notice while simultaneously contesting the validity of that direction.

The bench returned the sealed-cover material to the Respondents unopened, holding that perusing it at the interim stage would be premature when the same material would be central to the final hearing. It declined to express any view on whether the privilege claim was valid or on the scope of disclosure that would be required when the fresh show cause notice is eventually issued.

Outcome

The Division Bench dismissed CM APPL. 75597/2024 in LPA 1239/2024 and CM APPL. 75638/2024 in LPA 1243/2024, the interim applications filed by the Appellant seeking permission to travel to India during the pendency of the appeals. The prayer for interim relief was rejected in its entirety. The cross-appeals filed by both the Appellant and the Union of India — LPA 1239/2024, LPA 1243/2024, LPA 1245/2024, and LPA 1246/2024 — remain pending and are directed to be listed for final hearing on 24 August 2026, marked high on the board.