MP High Court quashes FIR against Afghan student for overstay, gives him seven weeks to leave India

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has quashed an FIR registered at Kolar Road police station in Bhopal against an Afghan student, Syed Rasheed Sadat. The student told the court that he now wants to return to his country, and the criminal proceedings against him were ended on that basis.

The court has attached conditions. He must buy a ticket back to Afghanistan within 30 days and leave India within seven weeks at the most. He will not be able to enter India again without a valid visa.

Sadat came to India on a student visa in December 2019. He earned a master's degree in journalism from a private university in Bhopal. International travel was barred during the Covid pandemic, so he could not return to Afghanistan. He then enrolled in a Master of Arts course in journalism and completed his studies in 2022.

In August 2021, power changed hands in Afghanistan and the Taliban government came in. Sadat said he feared persecution on return because he had studied journalism. He applied for refugee status at the India office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He received a blue card on March 24, 2023, and a refugee card on September 27, 2024, valid until February 28, 2027.

His student visa was extended from time to time, but the last extension was only until March 24, 2024. His passport was later renewed until June 20, 2027. The Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) had asked him to obtain an exit permit to leave India. Sadat had hoped that refugee status from UNHCR would bring him a long-term visa. He therefore did not apply for an exit permit or pay the prescribed fee. The authorities treated this as a deliberate overstay after the expiry of his visa.

Bhopal Intelligence and Security issued him a Leave India notice. When he did not leave the country in the stipulated time, an FIR was registered at Kolar Road police station under crime number 134/2025, under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act, 1946. On May 8, 2025, Sadat filed a petition in the High Court challenging the notice and the FIR. A single judge dismissed the petition on October 9, 2025, after which he appealed to a division bench.

At the hearing, his lawyers Sankalp Kochar and Prakhar Shukla said their client no longer wished to stay in India and was ready to return. He said that, given the changed situation in Afghanistan, he no longer feared persecution there. He said he could not leave India because the FIR and the criminal case were pending. He sought only the quashing of the FIR so that he could return to his country. The court took this submission on record and asked him for an affidavit stating his unconditional willingness to leave India.

The division bench of Chief Justice Alpesh Yashwant Kogje and Justice Vivek Jain said in its judgment that his entry into India was not unlawful. It said nothing had come to light to show that he was involved in any unlawful activity while living here. The basic charge is only of staying on after the visa expired. The bench said that when the foreign national himself is ready to return and the Government of India too does not wish him to stay here without reason, prosecuting him merely for overstaying would not serve the ends of justice. It would only prolong his stay in India. Considering these special circumstances, the High Court quashed the FIR.