NEW DELHI, Aug 11: A visa racket involving certain immigration officials is allegedly thriving at the Australian High Commission (AHC), where hefty bribes score points over immigration rules in granting visas for permanent residence in Australia.

The practice was brought to light by two brothers from New Delhi, now based in Melbourne, and has already become the subject of a controversy in Australia with a section of the local press and members of the Federal Parliament taking it up.

In their complaint that has now been turned into a campaign against corruption in Australia, Anand and Jayant Dagore have accused the New Delhi AHC officials of demanding bribe to grant them the residency visa, even though they had fulfilled the necessary conditions.

While Anand was successful, his brother Jayant had to fight for eight frustrating years just to make the Australian Government sit up and take note of the alleged happenings.

The ordeal began in 1989, when they applied for migration to Australia under the Australian Government's priority occupation list. Both held a three-year diploma in hotel management from the New Delhi-based Pusa Catering College and scored the same marks, besides the working experience in five-star hotels.

While Anand's case was okayed, Jayant's visa was refused on the grounds that his qualifications were ``not recognised'' in Australia and also that he did not possess the experience of working in an international hotel. At the time of depositing a hefty application fee (Australian $ 500), however, they were assured that both were eligible for a permanent visa.

The brothers now cite another example of Anil Bhaskar, who was also denied a visa on the same grounds, despite holding a three-year diploma from Pusa Institute and was working with Hotel Centaur. Curiously enough, exactly similar applications of two other candidates, Iqbal and his brother, were cleared despite the fact that they held a one-year diploma from an unrecognised institute in Rajouri Garden.

Refusing to let go easily, Jayant filed repeated review applications pointing out the invalidity of the grounds for refusal to grant him a visa. All the applications were turned down.

In his statutory declaration dated December 22, 1993, Anand claimed that one Singh at the AHC advised him to ``take the route that was taken by Iqbal,'' saying that the approval could be arranged through his colleague, Mrs Kaushik, if a sum of Australian $ 15,000 to 20,000 was paid.

In a recently published interview to the emigrants' Indian monthly newspaper, Indian Voice, Anand claims that on the basis of the declaration submitted to the then Australian minister of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Nick Bolkus, three senior investigating officers of the Federal Police were dispatched to New Delhi where they interviewed Jayant at their Rouse Avenue house.

``But the outcome of the investigation was never made public,'' Anand has been quoted as saying in the Indian Voice. Even the editor of the newspaper had reportedly apprised the first secretary (immigration) of the entire controversy during his visit to the Capital last July and was assured of stringent action.

In Jayant's case, it was the personal intervention of the local MP, Petro Georgio, that finally got him out of the labyrinth. On Georgio's request, the office of the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs instructed the New Delhi AHC that Jayant Dagore be immediately issued the visa as they had themselves seen all his documents.

Jacky Hickman, First Secretary (Immigration) in the AHC, when contacted for clarification, expressed her inability to comment on the case without referring to Jayant's file since she had taken over only recently.

She, however, added that the visa cases were reviewed on an individual basis, strictly according to the immigration policies laid down by the Australian Government, and that there could be no question of any discrimination.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.