Jammu, May 30: Justice Javed Iqbal Wani of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has issued notices to the Union Home Secretary and others in a petition filed by former Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) constable Munir Ahmed, challenging his dismissal from service for marrying a Pakistani national.
In a writ petition filed before the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, Jammu wing through Advocate Ankur Sharma, he listed details of his communications with CRPF officers since 2022 at various levels.
Munir Ahmed was dismissed from service after he married his cousin, a Pakistan national whose family had migrated from Jammu’s Bhalwal tehsil in 1947.
Munir Ahmed’s writ petition claimed that he, the petitioner, was removed from service in an arbitrary, capricious, and whimsical manner through an impugned termination order of May 2, 2025, and requested the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to “set it aside”.
Munir Ahmed in his petition said he “from 2022 had duly intimated the authorities time and again by following the procedure and rule”, with communications and representations.
The Jammu and Kashmir High Court, hearing the matter, issued notices to the MHA and the CRPF, asking them to respond to Munir Ahmed’s writ petition before the next hearing, scheduled for June 30 this year.
Munir Ahmed reiterated that he first filed an application seeking permission for his marriage in 2022. However, in January 2023, he got it back, along with some objections.
A letter by Inspector General of Police, CRPF Jammu informed the Special Director General of Police, J&K about his intimation in November 2023.
On April 30, 2024, the then Director General of the CRPF certified that he “intimated the department well within the rules” and said that he found “no mention of not issuing a no-objection certificate under the rules”, according to the petition.
Munir Ahmed was transferred from the 72nd Battalion in Jammu to the 41st Battalion in Bhopal in March 2025. According to the plea, the diary for the new posting also recorded and clarified that his wife is of Pakistani origin.
Moreover, to prove his “impeccable integrity”, Ahmed relied upon a series of letters of recommendation from local BJP MPs. The MPs wrote to the Union Minister of State for home affairs and the Union Minister for external affairs, seeking a visa for his wife.
In the latest letter dated February 6, 2025, Gulam Ali Khatana, a nominated Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP, requested External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to expedite the granting of a long-term visa to Menal Khan.
In a similar request in February 2024, Jugal Kishore Sharma, BJP MP from Jammu-Reasi, requested the then Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Kumar Mishra, to clear Meenal Khan’s visa application pending before the MHA.–(UNI)
