The Supreme Court of India, comprising the bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, on Thursday refused to grant any relief to the 150 illegal Rohingya refugees, currently lodged in a detention camp in Jammu and allowed for the deportation process to begin after the procedures for such a practice are set in place.
“It is not possible to grant interim relief. However, it is made clear that the Rohingyas in Jammu on whose behalf the application has been moved shall not be deported unless the procedure prescribed for such deportation is followed,” said the court in its judgement.
The petition claimed that they had been “illegally detained and jailed” and sought directions to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to assess the protection needs of the illegal immigrants and grant refugee cards not only to Rohingyas but to all refugees across the country.
The refugees are being represented by Prashant Bhushan who, in a previous hearing of the matter, had argued that sending the Rohingyas to Myanmar when it is under a military junta will endanger their lives. However, the CJI, during the hearing, made oral observations acknowledging the threat faced by Rohingyas in Myanmar but added that the court cannot do anything about it.
As reported by TFI, the central government has already made its stance clear on the Rohingya problem. In an affidavit, while calling Rohingyas “absolutely illegal migrants” who posed “serious threats to the national security”, the Modi government said that India cannot become the “international capital of illegal migrants”.
According to a report by Bar and Bench, the plea sought the protection of the rights of the refugees guaranteed under Article 14 (equality before law) and Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty), read with Article 51(C) of the Constitution (respect for international law and treaty obligations in the dealings of organised people with one another; and encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration).
However, Solicitor general Tushar Mehta countered the plea by stating that deportation is done following the procedure established by law, and hence it cannot be held to be violative of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.
As for Article 14 and Article 21, the affidavit filed by the central government was self-explanatory and cleared any doubts regarding the deportation process.
“The Constitution makes it abundantly clear that India, as a sovereign nation, has the first and foremost Constitutional obligation and duty towards its citizens and to ensure that the demographic and social structure of the country is not changed to its detriment, the resulting socio-economic problems do not occur to the prejudice of the citizens and the resources of the nation are utilised to fulfil the fundamental rights of its own citizens and are not diverted to the detriment of the citizens, due to influx of illegal migrants into the territory of India,” the affidavit said.
The judgement by the SC should put an end to the entire Rohingya settlement argument. They are the aliens who gained illegal entry into the country through illicit means and therefore need to be deported, at the earliest.