The Federal Court dismissed the applicants’ judicial review on September 11, 2026, finding the Refugee Appeal Division’s conclusion that Mumbai was a safe internal flight alternative was reasonable. The Court upheld the RAD’s finding that the evidence did not show Punjabi police were motivated to locate and harm the applicants outside Punjab.
Refugee claim and RAD decision under review
The applicants, citizens of India, claimed to fear persecution by Punjabi police who they said believed they supported Sikh militants. They alleged they had been detained and assaulted by police on several occasions and released after bribes were paid. They also said they became Khalistan supporters after arriving in Canada and seeking asylum.
The Refugee Protection Division rejected their refugee claim, finding that Mumbai was a viable internal flight alternative and that the claim they became Khalistan supporters in Canada was not credible. In a March 12, 2025 decision, the Refugee Appeal Division conducted its own assessment, dismissed the appeal and reached similar conclusions.
The RAD found that the evidence did not establish that police would be motivated to seek out or harm the applicants in Mumbai. It also found that the applicants had conceded it would not be unreasonable, in all the circumstances, for them to relocate there.
Applicants challenged the IFA assessment
The applicants argued that the RAD unreasonably assessed the agents of harm’s ability and motivation to locate them in Mumbai. They also submitted that the RAD failed to consider whether relocation to the proposed IFA would be reasonable.
Justice Thorne held that reasonableness was the applicable standard of review. The Court noted that a reviewing court generally must not reweigh the evidence assessed by an administrative decision-maker absent exceptional circumstances.
The Court described the two-part IFA test: the proposed location must be safe from a serious possibility of persecution or relevant risk of harm, and relocation there must not be unreasonable in the circumstances. Once an IFA is proposed, the claimant bears the onus of showing it is not viable.
Court found the RAD's reasoning intelligible
The Court found that the RAD had not made a finding about whether police had the means to locate the applicants in Mumbai. Rather, it found that the evidence did not establish they had the motivation to do so. Justice Thorne noted that the applicants’ written submissions challenged findings the RAD had not actually made.
The RAD had considered evidence that police periodically went to the applicants’ home. It accepted that the visits could support some motivation to locate them outside Punjab, but concluded they did not establish a likely motivation to pursue or harm them in Mumbai. The RAD distinguished searches at the applicants’ known home address in Kala Sanghian from the greater effort required to locate them across India.
Justice Thorne found that the applicants were effectively asking the Court to reassess and reweigh that evidence. The Court held that the RAD’s conclusion on the local character of the searches and the lack of nationwide motivation was justified, intelligible and transparent.
On the second branch of the IFA test, the Court found that the RAD had addressed reasonableness. The applicants had conceded the issue before the RAD, and the RAD also stated that it had reviewed, agreed with and adopted the RPD’s reasoning on that question. The applicants did not identify a specific error in that analysis.
Judicial review dismissed
The Federal Court concluded that the RAD had undertaken a thorough and rigorous independent assessment of the evidence and that its decision was reasonable. The application for judicial review was dismissed.
No question of general importance was certified. The decision concerns the reasonableness of the RAD’s findings in this individual refugee matter and does not itself require a general change to refugee decision-making.
Source: Federal Court Decisions