RELIEF FOR INDIAN MIGRANTS IN U.K

Britain has decided to allow such professionals to stay here as it works to implement a high court ruling against immigration rule changes with retrospective effect.

The Home Office will not appeal against the April 8 verdict, which said it was “not open to the government to alter the terms and conditions” of the Highly Skilled MigrantsProgramme (HSMP) under which thousands of employees, mostly Indians, came to Britain. All highly-skilled migrants who came here under the HSMP as on November 7, 2006, when the regulation changes were made, can stay until processes are put in place to implement the judgment, the Home Office said.

Some 49,000 highly-skilled people had come to U.K. under the HSMP initiated in January 2002 and most of them were facing the prospect of returning home following changes in the immigration rules.

The HSMP Forum, representing the highly-skilled professionals, successfully challenged the changes and won a landmark case last week.

“We are happy to take the judge’s decision as final and do not intend to waste taxpayers money with an appeal,” Lin Homer, Chief Executive of the Border and Immigration Agency, said in a communication to the HSMP Forum executive director Amit Kapadia. “We are now urgently considering how to give effect to the judgment and will let you know the details as soon as we can,”