Docket: IMM-22758-24
Citation: 2025 FC 1939
Ottawa, Ontario, December 9, 2025
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Ahmed
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BETWEEN: |
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SIMRANJIT SINGH |
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Applicant |
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and |
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THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION |
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Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
I. Overview
[1] The Applicant, Simranjit Singh, seeks judicial review of a decision made by the Refugee Appeal Division (“RAD”
), dated October 15, 2023, confirming the decision made by the Refugee Protection Division (“RPD”
) that the Applicant is neither a Convention refugee nor a person in need of protection pursuant to sections 96 and 97(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27. The determinative issue was the existence of a viable internal flight alternative (“IFA”
) in Mumbai.
[2] For the reasons that follow, I find that the RAD’s decision is reasonable. This application for judicial review is dismissed.
II. Background
A. The Applicant
[3] The Applicant is a 27-year-old citizen of India.
[4] Since November 2020, the Applicant participated in activism supporting an independent state called Khalistan. On July 15, 2022, the Punjab police detained the Applicant without charges, where they abused and mistreated him. The police demanded a bribe in order to release the Applicant. On July 18, 2022, the police released the Applicant and instructed him to cease political activities related to Khalistan and to report to the police station on the first and fifteenth of every month. The Applicant last reported to the police on August 15, 2022.
[5] In October 2022, the Applicant fled to a town approximately 60 kilometres away from where he was detained. In February 2023, the Applicant left India, and, in July 2023, he made a refugee claim in Canada.
[6] In May 2024, the RPD refused the Applicant’s refugee claim because it determined there was an IFA in Mumbai. The RPD found that the Applicant did not face a serious possibility of persecution or risk of harm in the IFA, and that it was reasonable in the circumstances.
[7] The Applicant appealed the RPD decision to the RAD.
B. Decision Under Review
[8] In a decision dated October 16, 2025, the RAD affirmed the RPD’s decision that the Applicant had a viable IFA in Mumbai.
[9] The RAD found that the Applicant is unlikely to be pursued on a national level. It described that even though the National Documentation Package (“NDP”
) reported that Indian police sometimes track even minor Khalistan supporters, these arrests normally involved journalists, activists, and human rights defenders, which the Applicant is not.
[10] In addition, the RAD noted that the Indian police had not pursued the Applicant for the six months after the Applicant stopped reporting to police even though he remained in India.
[11] Further, the RAD found that the Applicant’s non-militant status was unlikely to cause nationwide interest. Instead, the RAD stated the Applicant’s arrest was likely motivated by corrupt local police officers looking to collect bribes. On the national level, the RAD determined that Indian police lack adequate numbers and resources, especially to locate individuals like the Applicant who have not been charged with any crime.
[12] Finding that the Applicant is unlikely to face persecution in Mumbai, the RAD noted that the Applicant had not disagreed with the RPD’s finding that the IFA was a reasonable location. The RAD, therefore, concluded that it did not need to address the RPD’s unchallenged findings. The RAD further noted that the second prong of the IFA test is a substantial threshold, and the Applicant had not shown that living in Mumbai would be unreasonable, or that his life or safety would be in jeopardy.
III. Issue and Standard of Review
[13] The sole issue in this judicial review is whether the RAD’s decision is reasonable.
[14] The parties submit that the applicable standard of review is reasonableness (Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 (“Vavilov”
). I agree.
[15] Reasonableness is a deferential, but robust, standard of review (Vavilov at paras 12-13). The reviewing court must determine whether the decision under review, including both its rationale and outcome, is transparent, intelligible and justified (Vavilov at para 15). A reasonable decision is one that is based on an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis and that is justified in relation to the facts and law that constrain the decision-maker (Vavilov at para 85). Whether a decision is reasonable depends on the relevant administrative setting, the record before the decision-maker, and the impact of the decision on those affected by its consequences (Vavilov at paras 88-90, 94, 133-135).
[16] For a decision to be unreasonable, the applicant must establish the decision contains flaws that are sufficiently central or significant (Vavilov at para 100). Not all errors or concerns about a decision will warrant intervention. A reviewing court must refrain from reweighing evidence before the decision-maker, and it should not interfere with factual findings absent exceptional circumstances (Vavilov at para 125). Flaws or shortcomings must be more than superficial or peripheral to the merits of the decision, or a “minor misstep”
(Vavilov at para 100).
IV. Analysis
[17] The Applicant submits that the RAD failed to grapple with the reasonableness of the IFA location and mischaracterized the Applicant’s persecutors as solely local authorities. The Applicant further submits that the RAD improperly relied on his non-militant status, instead of considering his participation in farmers’ protests, to conclude that there was no national interest in him.
[18] The Respondent submits that the RAD cannot be faulted for declining to consider the arguments not made before it, such as the reasonableness of the IFA and the Applicant’s participation in a farmers’ protest. The Respondent maintains that the RAD reasonably weighed the evidence showing that there is no national interest in the Applicant.
[19] I agree with the Respondent.
[20] The Applicant’s position is that he implicitly raised the reasonableness of the IFA location. The Applicant testified at the RPD hearing—not in his submissions to the RAD—that, if he continued his activism in support of Khalistan in Mumbai, the authorities would arrest him again. The RPD addressed this submission, and the Applicant did not challenge these findings in his appeal to the RAD either explicitly or implicitly. Therefore, the RAD was not obliged to address this argument (Kanawati v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 12 at para 23).
[21] In any event, the RAD addressed the Applicant’s fear of persecution for his political activism on a national level, including an analysis of the threat from both local and national police forces.
[22] Contrary to the Applicant’s submissions, the RAD’s finding that there was no national interest in the Applicant was not speculative. Based on the NDP, the RAD stated that the arrests of individuals opposing the government typically involve journalists, activists, and human rights defenders, which the Applicant is not. At the hearing, the Applicant submitted that the RAD’s assessment failed to consider how several individuals, who were not journalists or human rights defenders, were arrested during the same farmers’ protests in which the Applicant also took part. It is true that the RAD did not explicitly address this event. Nevertheless, this apparently isolated incident does not contradict the pattern that the RAD identified showing that arrests typically involve individuals with a different profile than the Applicant (Sotunde v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 1137 at para 25; Cepeda-Gutierrez v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 1998 CanLII 8667 at para 16 (FC)).
[23] The RAD further found that there was no national interest in the Applicant based on its analysis of the applicable local laws. The RAD noted that Indian laws allow police to detain a suspected militant for up to 180 days without charges, and yet the police chose to release the Applicant after three days. Relying on the NDP, the RAD considered the Indian police’s limited resources and the difficulty in locating the Applicant, who was unlikely to be in a tracking system because he was not charged with any crime.
[24] The RAD’s decision, therefore, reflects the evidence before it. The RAD considered the factors that the Applicant submits it overlooked and weighed key points of evidence according to the applicable factual and legal constraints (Vavilov at para 99). I do not find that the Applicant has raised a reviewable error in the decision that warrants this Court’s intervention.
V. Conclusion
[25] The RAD’s decision is justified in light of the factual and legal context before it, and it is therefore reasonable (Vavilov at paras 99). The RAD did not make speculative findings or ignore key arguments. For these reasons, I dismiss this judicial review.
[26] The parties did not raise any question for certification, and I agree that none arises.
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