The policy announcement comes after a campaign led by British actress Joanna Lumley, said a press brief released by the Joanna Lumley Gurkha Justice Campaign.
The Gurkha Justice Campaign aims to remove the "arbitrary" cut-off date of 1 July 1997 for allowing the retired Gurkha soldiers to live in the UK.
Those who retired before July 1, 1997 are not generally allowed to live in the UK. This has led to a situation in which veterans of the Falklands war and the first Gulf War are not allowed to live in the country for which they fought. Further, even Gurkhas who won the nation´s highest gallantry award in the Second World War - the Victoria Cross - were initially denied entry to the UK, the statement says.
The Gurkhas won a high-profile High Court victory in September last year which ruled the current UK government policy as ´unlawful´, but the Government failed to act promptly, according to the statement. Faced with the delay, Howe & Co, leading Gurkha rights lawyers, went back to Court on March 26, 2009 and won a court order which set out that the home secretary must produce the new policy by April 24. The court order also set out a timetable by which hundreds of Gurkha immigration cases should be reviewed.
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