SC questions 40-year delay in deporting B’desh nationals
The Supreme Court questioned the 40-year delay in deporting illegal Bangladeshi nationals, urging prompt action amid ongoing verification processes.
The Supreme Court on Friday questioned the 40-year delay by the Centre and Assam government in deporting illegal Bangladeshi nationals after it was informed that pursuant to an order passed last month, 13 out of 270 alleged foreigners in an Assam detention camp have been identified and handed over to Bangladesh.
A bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said, “The Assam Accord was signed in August 1985 (almost 40 years ago). Why have you not deported them so far. People (in the state) are agitated. Why don’t you deport them?” The Assam Accord was signed between Union government, the Assam government, All Assam Students Union and Assam Gana Sangram Parishad and fixed a cut-off date of March 25,1971, beyond which anybody who entered the state from Bangladesh was an illegal migrant and liable to be deported.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and Assam government, pointed out that these issues are dealt through diplomatic channels given their sensitivity . “The process is ongoing. Unless the other country does not accept these persons as their citizens, they cannot be deported. We persuaded Bangladesh government to accept 13 persons after their citizenship was verified. Once this exercise is done, deportation will be simultaneously done.”
The state submitted that as regards the remaining detainees, the nationality status verification (NSV) forms have been forwarded to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) which now has to engage with its counterpart in the foreign country.
Noting some “positive development” since the passing of the earlier order on February 4, the bench directed the state to file a fresh report by April 20 indicating further progress . As the Centre requested for six weeks time to complete the verification at its end and to formulate a policy with regard to those persons, whose nationality remains unverified, the bench permitted time till end of April to complete this exercise. The court posted the matter for hearing on May 6.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Rajubala Das in 2020 in which subsequent applications were filed by other detainees at Assam’s Goalpara detention centre complaining of delay in determining their status and the unhygienic conditions prevailing in the camps.
The court was informed that 33 out of the 270 detainees have approached the Gauhati high court challenging the declaration of their foreigner status. Some of these persons have also been granted conditional bail. The top court permitted the high court to decide their petitions without being constrained by the pendency of this matter.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves appearing for some of the detainees claimed that the order of the top court to detain may be misconstrued by the authorities to detain even the Rohingya refugees who are among the 270. He said that these persons do not want to return to their country of origin due to genocide in their homestate of Myanmar.
SG Mehta said that the issue of Rohingyas and their deportation is being considered by a separate bench of the top court. He said that India is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention and in the absence of such a binding obligation, no foreigner has a right to stay in India illegally.
The bench said, “The NSV formats have been sent to MEA. We do not know how many among them are from Myanmar. If the government of that country accepts them as their citizens, the Indian government will take steps for their deportation if they want to happily go back. In this petition, we are not considering that issue.”
By its February 4 order, the top court pulled up the Assam and Union governments for delaying the deportation of foreigners observing that such persons cannot be kept in our country “indefinitely”. It directed the state and Centre to take urgent steps to verify their nationality and proceed with their deportation.
Going through the Assam affidavit, the bench observed, “Everything seems to have been done after February 14, 2025.” The bench said that in the earlier affidavits filed by the state, it expressed helplessness to deport these persons as their nationality was not known.
The present affidavit showed that following court’s February 4 order, a seven-member Committee was constituted on February 15 to visit the Transit Camp, Matia, Goalpara, once a fortnight to ensure all required facilities are available there and to report any deficiency to the district authorities.
