The High Court of Britain on April 08, in its land mark judgement ruled the new scheme as illegal under which highly skilled workers from India immigrated to UK to fit in the framework provided to them.
The High Court judge Sir George Newman, said that the old rules should be honored for those immigrants who are already in the UK and that it is unreasonable to snatch the benefits offered to them originally.
“Good administration and straightforward dealing with the public require it. Not to restrain the impact of the changes would, in my judgment, give rise to conspicuous unfairness and an abuse of power,” he added.
The Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) introduced in January 2002 came with a guideline to attract human capital individual. The scheme was a point based system under which the immigrants seeking to go UK had to score enough points based on criteria like age, qualification, salary, UK experience and UK study. Also, they were provisionally granted entry for a year, with eligibility for a two-year extension and then a further three years before allowing them for final settlement.
The HSMP included highly skilled Indians from the pool of doctors, engineer, technocrats etc but the changes that was of major concern to them was when the requirements to pass the test were increased for those who wanted to extend their visa in 2006.
The changes created flutter among those who wanted to stay there though thrashed by governments new law the HSMP Forum challenged the government immigration law legally which stated that the changes were unreasonable and unjust.
According to the forum the judgement will affect 44,000 doctors, technocrats and engineers but Home Office which is considering to take the matter to the court and appeal against the ruling contradict that the new changes will only affect 1,370 people.
Amit Kapadia, Executive Director of the HSMP Forum, said that he is relieved at the court ruling and added that their judgement has strengthened their hope in democracy.
The government argued that old norms were not enough for the selection procedure to add to the highly skilled worker pool of UK. Officials claimed that if new law would have been implemented hundreds of thousands of workers had to be deported with their families who settled there by leaving everything back their home.
Reportedly, like the High Court judgement the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights too has condemned the changes made to HSMP.
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