Two Indians including a Gujarati youth detained in Iran, Delhi HC Seeks Centre’s Reply

New Delhi, 25 April 2014

The Delhi High Court has sought a response from the Centre on a plea of family members of two Indians, who are stranded in Iran and not able to come back here, seeking help in securing their return.

Justice Manmohan issued notices to the ministries of External Affairs, Home and Labour and sought their replies before May 27.

Sanket Pandya, a resident of Vadodara in Gujarat, and Haryana’s Mohammed Hussain Khan, have not been able to come back as their passports had allegedly been taken away by a private engineering firm in Iran’s Zanjan city over a business dispute with the engineers’ Goa-based company.

The Indian Embassy in Tehran had thereafter shifted them to a hotel in Tehran but they have not been able to return to India yet, the petition filed by their family has said.

The family members, in their plea, have sought that appropriate arrangements be made for their safe return home.

They have contended that despite the fact that they have approached various authorities, including the Ambassador and the Embassy of Iran, the two men are still held up in Iran.

India and Iran are signatories to various treaties and conventions of the UN and the human rights, the petition said and sought a direction to the government to intervene.

Pandya and Khan were deputed to Iran by their company for supervision of installation and pre-commissioning of the power plant being set up in Zanjan city. The power plant was being set up by Vazarjahan Company of Iran.

Later, a contractual dispute arose between the two companies, leading to alleged unauthorised seizure of passports of the two men, the petition said.