Singapore's activist lawyer M Ravi has applied to the High Court to quash the deportation order of one of the 57 foreign workers sent home for their alleged involvement in the December 8 riot in the city-state.
Ravi is also asking for Rajendran Ranjan's work permit to be reinstated, so that the 22-year-old Indian can continue working in Singapore, The Straits Times reported on Wednesday. Ranjan had initially been accused of being part of a group of seven men who used a wooden stick, a dustbin and a metal drain cover to smash the windscreen of a private bus which had knocked down an Indian, leading to his death in Little India area in the city.
After the prosecution withdrew the charges, District Judge Lim Tse Haw ruled that the seven men had been given a discharge amounting to an acquittal. Four of the men were later issued police warnings, before being deported last Friday.
Ravi said that he had written to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority twice last Friday, after his client was taken into custody for repatriation later that day. He had stated his intention to file a judicial review challenging the deportation order, and had also requested access to his client.
However, Ranjan was not allowed to be briefed by a lawyer, and was still sent home despite having been acquitted, said Ravi. The lawyer claimed this meant that his client was denied his right of appeal under Section 33(2) of the Immigration Act. Singapore has deported 57 foreign workers, including 56 Indians, and warned some 200 others for rioting, the city state's worst street violence in 40 years.
Twenty-five Indian nationals would be charged in court this Friday for rioting.
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