The Kerala High Court held that merely because a person had moved to Pakistan in search of job does not make him an enemy under Rules 130 and 138 of the Defence of India Rules, 1971 unless he was trading with an enemy.

A single bench of Justice Viju Abraham recently issued the order while allowing a petition filed by P Ummer Koya of Chettippadi, Malappuram, who retired from Kerala Police service, seeking to declare that his property to an extent of 20.500 cents in Parappanangadi village does not come under enemy properties.

Ummar Koya purchased the land from his father Kunji Koya, who had worked in Pakistan for some time. When the petitioner approached the Village officer, Parappanangadi for remitting the Basic Tax in respect of his properties, the village officer refused to accept it saying the property was purchased under the purview of the Enemy Property Act, 1968 and it was being investigated by the Custodian of Enemy Property for India (CEPI).

The revenue officials informed him that action was being taken as per the notification issued by the Ministry of Foreign Trade. The petitioner’s father was suspected to be a Pakistan national, purported to be an enemy, and thus his property was also considered as ‘enemy property’.

Following this, Ummer Koya approached the high court pleading that his father, who was domiciled in India as of January 26, 1950, on the commencement of the Constitution, had gone to Karachi, Pakistan in 1953 in search of a job and worked there as a helper in a hotel for a short while.

The petitioner said his father died in 1995 and the inhumation was at Valiya Juma-at Palli Kabrastan, Parappanangadi. The death certificate in this regard was also produced before the court.

The court said the definitions provided in the Defence of India Rules were specific to wartime contexts and were not applicable for the purpose of determining enemy property under peacetime legislation.

After quashing the proceedings initiated under the Enemy Property Act, the court directed the village officer to collect the tax on the property from the petitioner.