New Zealand YouTuber Karl Rock's wife approaches Delhi high court for quashing of blacklisting

Delhi high court. File pic

After the Indian government restricted New Zealand-origin YouTuber Karl Rock from entering the country till next year for violating multiple visa norms, his wife on Saturday approached Delhi High Court to quash the blacklisting. Petitioner Manisha Malik has urged the High Court to further issue an India Visa for her YouTuber husband, whose real name is Karl Edward Rice, thereby enabling Rice to visit India subject to the valid conditions of an Indian Visa.

Malik in her petition filed through advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi has urged Delhi High Court to call for records pertaining to the cancellation of Visa and unilateral blacklisting of her husband, by the respondents.

Advocate Ayyubi in the petition told the court that petitioner Malik has preferred the instant writ petition challenging the arbitrary and unreasonable blacklisting of Rice, "who has not been able to return to India from New Zealand since October 10, 2020.

"The petitioner is an Indian national, and has been with Karl Edward Rice, a national of New Zealand, since 2014 and married him in 2019. Since their marriage, the petitioner and Rice have been peacefully living together in New Delhi. The petitioner and her husband are YouTube vloggers and therefore have visited most of India to capture its beauty and thereby contribute to the promotion of tourism in India," the petition said.

"The petitioner, by virtue of denial of a visa to her husband who has been arbitrarily blacklisted by the Respondents, is deprived from living with her husband thereby violating her fundamental right to life and dignity as guaranteed under Article 21," the plea stated.

It also said that Rice has dual nationality of New Zealand and the Netherlands, and has been visiting India since 2013, strictly abiding by the laws of the country and the conditions of the Visa.

"During the entire period since 2013, while the petitioner's husband has been granted an Indian visa on various occasions, there hasn't been even a single allegation against the petitioner's husband," the advocate said.

"Subsequent to the marriage of the petitioner with Rice, the petitioner's husband was granted an X-2 Visa (meant for spouse/children of an Indian citizen) bearing which had a validity period till May 2024 and one of the conditions in the said Visa was for the petitioner's husband to exit India every 180 days or to intimate the concerned Foreigner Regional Registration Office," added the advocate.

Advocate Ayyubi further submitted that complying with the condition of exiting the nation, while the petitioner's husband left India on October 10, 2020, he has not been able to return to India because the application for issuance of an Indian Visa is being rejected by the respondents.

"While the petitioner has been running from pillar to post and no reasons are communicated to either Karl Edward Rice or to the petitioner herself as to on what basis her husband's request for issuance of Visa have been rejected, the petitioner's husband was only verbally informed that he has been blacklisted and therefore he is not permitted to enter into India. The petitioner and her husband, separated by virtue of this sudden and arbitrary blacklisting by the Respondents are also not been given any manner of an indication as to the nature or period of such blacklisting," the petition added further.

Earlier today, sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs had said that the vlogger, was found doing business activities on a tourist visa, which is in violation of the terms and conditions of his visa and hence been restricted from entering India for a year and his visa has been cancelled as well by the government.

Rice, on Friday, alleged that the Indian government had last year cancelled his visa without giving him any reason why he was "blacklisted" after he left India to travel to Dubai and Pakistan.

The YouTuber whose channel on the social media platform has over 1.79 million subscribers had on July 9 published a video titled 'Why I Haven't Seen My Wife in 269 Days #Blacklist".

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