Docket: IMM-24633-24
Citation: 2025 FC 1979
Ottawa, Ontario, December 16, 2025
PRESENT: Madam Justice Pallotta
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BETWEEN: |
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KRISHNA KUMAR PAULRAJ |
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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
[1] On this application for judicial review, Krishna Kumar Paulraj asks the Court to set aside a decision of the Immigration and Refugee Board’s Refugee Appeal Division (RAD). The RAD dismissed Mr. Paulraj’s appeal and confirmed the Refugee Protection Division’s (RPD) decision that he is not a Convention refugee or a person in need of protection under sections 96 or 97 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 [IRPA] because he has viable internal flight alternatives (IFAs) in India.
[2] Mr. Paulraj fears he will be located and harmed if he returns to India, because he brought shame to his ex-wife’s family by filing for a divorce on grounds that she was having an affair with another man, HB. Mr. Paulraj claims that he was threatened and attacked after filing for divorce in 2019, and the threats and attacks continued even after his divorce case was dismissed for insufficient evidence and after his marriage was dissolved by mutual divorce in 2023.
[3] Refugee protection will not be conferred on a refugee claimant who has an IFA—a safe place to relocate within their country of origin. In Mr. Paulraj’s case, he had the burden of proving that two proposed IFA cities in India were not viable, either because (i) he would face a serious possibility of persecution (IRPA s 96) or a risk of harm (IRPA s 97) in those cities, or because (ii) the conditions are such that it would be unreasonable in all of the circumstances for him to seek refuge there: Rasaratnam v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), 1991 CanLII 13517 (FCA); Thirunavukkarasu v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), 1993 CanLII 3011 (FCA).
[4] Mr. Paulraj alleged that he would not be safe in the IFA cities because his ex-wife’s family and HB’s family have political and police connections and would use their influence to find him. He also alleged that it would be unreasonable for him to relocate to the IFA cities.
[5] The RPD found that Mr. Paulraj had not met his burden for either prong of the two-prong IFA test—he had not shown that the agents of harm had the motivation or the means to locate him in the proposed IFA cities, and he had not shown that it would be unreasonable for him to seek refuge there.
[6] On appeal, despite an error by the RPD, the RAD agreed with the RPD’s conclusion that Mr. Paulraj has IFAs within India:
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on the first prong, while the RPD had made an error regarding motivation, the RAD found it was unnecessary to consider motivation because the agents of harm do not have the means to locate Mr. Paulraj in the IFA cities; and
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on the second prong, the RAD was not persuaded that it would be objectively unreasonable, in Mr. Paulraj’s circumstances, to relocate to the IFA cities.
[7] Mr. Paulraj contends the RAD made reviewable errors in its analysis of both prongs of the IFA test.
[8] The sole issue on this application is whether the RAD’s IFA determination was unreasonable, according to the principles for reasonableness review set out by the Supreme Court of Canada in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65. Reasonableness is a deferential but robust standard of review: Vavilov at paras 12-13, 75 and 85. In applying the reasonableness standard, the Court must determine whether the decision is sufficiently transparent, intelligible, and justified: Vavilov at para 99. A reasonable decision is based on an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis, and it is justified in relation to the facts and law that constrain the decision maker: Vavilov at para 85.
[9] On the first prong of the IFA analysis, Mr. Paulraj submits that the RAD failed to consider all the evidence that was relevant to whether the agents of harm have the means to locate him in the IFAs. He contends the RAD:
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diminished the political and influential reach of the agents of harm, noting only that his ex-in-laws have political connections in that his ex-wife works at a politician’s office, without mentioning other agents of harm (HB and his father), other political and police connections (including that HB’s father works for the police), or other evidence of influence (including that the police refused to investigate his complaint against his ex-wife’s brother, and that his ex-wife’s family was involved in an honour killing that was not prosecuted due to their connections);
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overlooked objective country condition evidence in the National Documentation Package (NDP) for India about (i) databases the police could access to find him, (ii) increasingly sophisticated means of government surveillance, and (iii) police corruption and the resources that police could access illegally, given the family’s influence (particularly when the police have already abused their power for the family’s benefit); and
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did not address the family’s ability to track him through means other than the police, when there was evidence that they had tracked him before and hired hit men to attack him.
[10] On the second prong of the IFA analysis, Mr. Paulraj submits that the RAD did not consider the totality of his circumstances. He contends the RAD ignored evidence of discrimination against Tamils and overlooked his argument that it would be easier for the agents of harm to find him if he relocates to a Tamil community in an IFA city.
[11] The respondent submits that the RAD’s decision must be assessed in the context of how Mr. Paulraj framed his appeal, but Mr. Paulraj impugns the RAD’s decision by broadening his argument beyond what he argued on appeal. The respondent submits Mr. Paulraj had argued that the agents of harm would weaponize the police to find him and the RAD addressed this argument by addressing each of the means he alleged the police would use to track him at the family’s behest. The respondent contends there is no merit to Mr. Paulraj’s argument that the RAD diminished the influence of the agents of harm by failing to mention them by name, and the Court should not entertain his argument about the family’s ability to track him other than through the police because he did not make that argument to the RAD. Furthermore, the RAD did not ignore evidence of discrimination against Tamils, and the RAD did not overlook Mr. Paulraj’s argument that he would be easier to find in Tamil communities because it explained why the agents of harm lacked the means to locate him.
[12] I accept that Mr. Paulraj’s arguments to the RAD focused on how the agents of harm would weaponize the police. I have assessed the RAD’s decision in view of how Mr. Paulraj framed his appeal.
[13] Having overturned the RPD’s finding that the agents of harm were not motivated to find Mr. Paulraj, the RAD conducted its own assessment and concluded that Mr. Paulraj’s ex-in-laws and the police do not have the means to locate him in the IFA cities. I find that Mr. Paulraj has established a reviewable error with the RAD’s means analysis.
[14] Mr. Paulraj argued that the political influence of the agents of harm will give them access to various means to target him, including access to state resources such as the police. He argued that the agents of harm would take advantage of a politicized police force as a “tool for the influentials”
and the many ways corrupt police can track people.
[15] The RAD addressed the political and influential reach of the agents of harm as follows:
The Appellant testified that his ex-in-laws have political connections; specifically, he testified that his ex-wife works at a politician’s office in Tuticorin. He testified that he believes that through this connection, his ex-in-laws could track him via the police…
[16] The RAD did not mention other political and police connections of the agents of harm or other evidence of influence that Mr. Paulraj had described in his basis of claim (BOC) narrative and his oral testimony. Mr. Paulraj correctly points out that, while it was open for the RAD to find that these other connections were insufficient to show the agents of harm would have the means to find him, the RAD did not make such a finding. Instead, it referred to one person’s role in one political office and used language suggesting that this was the limit of the family’s influence.
[17] To be clear, the RAD did not simply fail to mention all the agents of harm by name, as the respondent argues. Indeed, I disagree with Mr. Paulraj that the RAD should have named HB and HB’s father as agents of harm. Mr. Paulraj’s BOC narrative says that he sought refugee protection because of threats and fear “due to my ex-wife family,”
and when the RPD asked him if he faces threats from anyone other than his ex-wife’s family, he said there was no one else. Rather, in my view, the error is that it appears from the reasons that the RAD either overlooked evidence of the family’s connections and influence, or the RAD considered this evidence but did not explain how it affected the assessment of the NDP evidence or the means analysis generally.
[18] This error in the means analysis, which was the sole basis for finding that Mr. Paulraj would be safe in the IFA cities, constitutes a sufficiently serious shortcoming and it warrants setting aside the decision. Consequently, it is unnecessary to address the other alleged errors with the RAD’s IFA analysis, under either prong of the test.
[19] Neither party proposed a question for certification. I find there is no question to certify.
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