Ashok Kumar Sivaram
The Supreme Court has set March 8, 2018 to deliver its judgement on a review motion filed by the Attorney General’s Office challenging two High Court rulings, which ordered the Comptroller General of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) to restore the work and resident permits of Indian businessman Ashok Kumar Sivaram.
The state filed the motion after it withdrew an application for stay of execution at the Appeal Court to challenge the rulings of the High Court.
Appearing before the court yesterday, Jasmine Armah, a Senior State Attorney told the court that the trial judge at the High Court exceeded her jurisdiction when she ruled on the order of mandamus.
She said the judge also committed procedural error on the face of the records when she gave two different rulings with the same date.
She therefore prayed the apex court to quash the September 18, 2017 decision of the High Court as the Comptroller General of the GIS, under the Immigration Act, has the discretion to revoke a foreigner’s residential and work permits.
Defence Counsel, Gary Nimarko strongly opposed the application, saying he will rely on his affidavits in opposition filed on September 22, 2018 and February 1, 2018.
He said although the Comptroller General of the GIS has the authority to revoke a residential and work permit, he ought to be fair, candid and reasonable.
He said Mr Sivaram has been in the country for the past 17 years and has not had any shortcomings with the law and that the Comptroller’s discretion should have rather been in his favour.
He said there was no error on the face of the record and prayed the court to uphold the decision of the High Court.
The Ghana Immigration Service, following the orders of the Interior Minister, Ambrose Derry, deported the businessman on grounds that he had acquired a forged marriage certificate in support of his application for citizenship in Ghana.
However, the High Court on July 31, 2017 quashed the deportation order.
According to the court, the Interior Minister exceeded his jurisdiction by determining fraud against the Indian businessman without recourse to the court.
Marriage certificate
The issue about the marriage certificate popped up again at the apex court yesterday.
It turned out that the purported certificate which he used to support his application for citizenship was fake and could not be traced at the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA).
His lawyer, Gary Nimarko stated that they checked the authenticity of the said marriage certificate from the Marriage Registrar’s Office and found out that the signatures of all officials concerned had been captured.
He, however, said the document could not be traced at the KMA office.
Justice A.A. Benin drew his attention to the fact that many people forge marriage certificates to suit their cause.
He said he had received several calls from embassies to confirm whether he had signed certain marriage certificates and although he had no knowledge of them, they had his signature on them.
Justice Benin urged the defence counsel to consider the public interest and the opinion it will generate when it turns out that his client was allowed to use a fake marriage certificate to obtain a resident permit.
A five-member panel presided over by Justice Anin Yeboah set March 8, 2018 to deliver its judgement on the application.
The other justices on the panel are Sulley Gbadegbe, Gbariel Pwamang, Paul Baffoe-Bonnie and Alfred Benin.
By Gibril Abdul Razak