London to Freetown

Tirtha Raj Gurung enlisted in the Brigade of Gurkhas British Army on the 22^nd October 1976  and was retired  on the  10^th August 1993 after sixteen years and two  hundred and ninety two days of service.  His exemplary service took him to  the UK, Hong Kong and South Korea.

 Recently with his closest family  residing in the UK; his niece, nephew, brother and  his son, who himself  serves in the British Army,  Tirtha  decided to apply for indefinite leave to remain , to go and live for a while in the country he had served and to be closer to his immediate family.

It is not cheap to apply for Indefinite leave to remain, 72,500 NR (about five hundred and eighty pounds: over six and half times the average monthly gurkha pension) and there is no refund on that substantial figure.  Tirtha spent many months and most of his savings putting together his application for Indefinite leave to remain in the UK.  

As Tirtha was discharged from the British Army before the 1^st July 1997  the home office have a discretion to grant indefinite leave to remain where there are strong reasons as to why settlement in the UK is appropriate, these include demonstrating strong family ties such as a child living in the UK, as in Tirtha’s case.

 On the 18^th May 2007 Tirtha received  the home office response to his application,

‘ I have carefully considered your application….. however I am not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that your application meets the requirements.. This is because…

You have not produced any satisfactory evidence that you have any close family such as…children in the UK as opposed to Nepal.’

Apart from his long and loyal service to the British Army (surely demonstrative of ties to the UK) the one thing that Tirtha could show beyond a reasonable doubt was that his own son was living in the UK and indeed intends to settle there at the end of his service. 

Tirtha saved for months for his application to enter the country he served so long for.  He expected his application to be at least considered on the basis of the information submitted. 

The recently publicised refusal of Tul Bulhadur Pun VC’s application for indefinite leave to remain only underlines a worrying trend of seemingly Ill considered refusals to these loyal soldiers.  One can only surmise what is going wrong with the Home Office attachment here in Nepal, perhaps it’s the heat in Kathmandu, maybe they are too overworked  : whatever the reason their ill considered rejections of applications are causing serious hardship and injustice to these loyal soldiers.