An Indian family will return to India next month after all their attempts to get a permanent residency in Australia failed due to a "bogus" document.
Kirshnakumar Singh Zala who came to Australia in 2005 as an international student will board a flight to India on 13th January with his family after the Immigration Minister declined to intervene in his case.
Mr Zala’s application for permanent residency was refused in December 2014 on the basis that he supplied a document with an earlier application for a temporary visa which was determined to be “bogus."
According to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP), Mr Zala’s 900-hour work experience document was obtained fraudulently through Carmine Amarante, a man who was jailed for running a "sophisticated fraud" to assist international students to obtain permanent residency by creating false work reference letter.
Carmine Amarante was a teacher at the college where Mr Zala undertook his Certificate course in baking.
Mr Zala had submitted a work reference showing 900-hours of voluntary work to support his temporary visa application in February 2008.
A few months later, the Victorian Government approved his state nomination upon the successful assessment of his skills and work experience by the Trades Recognition Australia, and he applied for a permanent resident's visa.
Though his application for a temporary visa was rejected in November 2012, his application for permanent residency wasn't decided until December 2014.
The Immigration Department argued the TRA assessment was based on a bogus document and couldn’t be considered for a visa grant.
Mr Zala’s appeals at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Federal Circuit Court had been unsuccessful.
He couldn’t supply the diary notes that Mr Zala claimed he kept of his working hours while doing the voluntary work for a "substantial period" of 900 hours at a bakery in Glenroy, Melbourne, to which the court said it was “remarkable that 920 hours could possibly be appropriately undertaken without pay”.
However, Mr Zala maintains his work experience was genuine and he had not obtained it via fraudulent means.
“I am innocent. I came to Australia for a better future for myself and my family. My only fault was that I went to that college [where Mr Amarante taught],” he told SBS Punjabi.
After having lost all avenues to appeal against the refusal to grant him a visa, Mr Zala has booked tickets for himself and his family to travel to India for 13th January next year. But he says he can’t fathom how he would resettle in a country that he left twelve years ago.
“I came to Australia when I was 26 and I spent the best years of my life here. My work in Australia is immensely different from the way things work in India. I’ll have no future there,” he said.
Mr Zala told the immigration department the weather in India causes his sons to suffer medical reactions and their physical well-being may be at risk if they are forced to return.
He has started an to seek community support in a last-ditch effort to sway the Immigration Minister to reconsider his decision.
