Rotherhithe hero Vimal Pandya’s battle to stay in the UK has been mentioned in Parliament as MP Neil Coyle pushes for a debate on whether “exceptional circumstances” could override Home Office rules.
Vimal, 42, received royal recognition for supporting hundreds of families during the covid-19 pandemic but faces a return to India after an immigration tribunal ruled against him in January.
The judge noted Vimal’s “selfless desire to help others” but concluded that he’d overstayed his visa. The UK had no policy of “treating individuals differently because of ‘good works’,” he said.
Friends and neighbours were “devastated” by the decision and Vimal is expected to appeal.
Speaking in the Commons on Thursday, March 23, the third anniversary of the first lockdown, Mr Coyle said: “During covid lockdowns, Vimal Pandya helped hundreds of local people across Rotherhithe with shopping, prescriptions and more.
“The late Majesty the Queen recognised and commended his exceptional contribution but the Home Office refuses to do so, actually preventing him from regularising his staying the UK by removing his passport.”
He formally asked MP Penny Mourdant, Leader of the House of Commons, to provide “time to debate Vimal’s exceptional case for a local hero who has the gratitude of thousands of my constituents including me”.
Spoke in the Commons today on the anniversary of the first lockdown to applaud @Vimalpa95866836 & the campaign @letvimalstay & to ask the Government to recognise Vimal’s exceptional contribution during covid, as recognised by the Queen. pic.twitter.com/ABCAzHXmx8
— Neil Coyle (@coyleneil) March 23, 2023
Ms Mourdant offered to raise the issue with the Home Office. Mr Coyle told the News: “I’ll take her up on the offer for her to raise but I will also now seek a debate on ‘exceptional’ circumstances and Home Office rules to try and draw a focus on Vimal’s case.”
When the judge made his ruling in January, it looked like Vimal would be forced back to India, saddled with £24,000 in debt, twelve years after landing in the UK in 2011.
This was despite his running a free delivery service from the Halai General Stores, in Rotherhithe, for elderly people cooped up indoors during lockdowns, which saw him receive a letter of thanks from the Queen’s lord lieutenant.
Vimal first arrived in the UK on a student visa but in March 2014, while part-way through his studies, he had to chaperone a seriously ill family friend to India.
When he got back to the UK in April, border force agents told him his college had lost its right to sponsor students.
They stripped him of his passport, making it very difficult for Vimal to apply to other colleges to get a student visa.
But Vimal says they were often reluctant to accept photocopies even though those approved by the Home Office are allowed.
The judge accepted that “in practice many testing bodies were reluctant to allow individuals to sit tests without original documents”.
Vimal’s right to remain came to an end in 2014 and, in January 2015, a judicial review to extend his stay was dismissed.
From then until January 2022, he worked at the Halai General Stores, in Rotherhithe, technically illegally, by which time he’d become regarded as a “pillar of the community”.