Decision to strip Hong Kong chef of residency over fake birth date must be reconsidered, High Court rules
- Mahesh Roy from India did not know the date of birth stated on his permanent identity card was not his real birthday
- When he applied to amend the date, his right to stay in the city was removed on the basis he had earlier used ‘false representation’
A Hong Kong resident, who lost his right to stay in the city after he told authorities he was actually 10 years younger than he originally claimed, has successfully applied for a judicial review to have that decision reconsidered.
On Thursday, the High Court allowed Mahesh Roy’s application over the Registration of Persons Tribunal’s determination to dismiss his appeal against the decision to invalidate his permanent identity card, and ordered the matter be reconsidered.
Roy, who is originally from West Bengal in India, had applied for the card in May 2010 after renouncing his nationality, following two decades of working as a chef in Hong Kong.
But at the time he did not know the date of birth stated on the card, June 6, 1960, was not his real birthday.
In 1985, the chef had obtained his first identity document when an employer in Dubai offered him a job as a cook and arranged for him to obtain an Indian passport, despite his lack of birth certificate or other forms of identification.
He signed a number of documents, but said he did not know their contents as he was illiterate.
Roy later used the same passport to enter Hong Kong in 1990, first as a visitor, then on an employment visa, until he was granted unconditional stay in 1997.
