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On Thursday, the SC bench headed by Chief Justice RanjanGogoi dismissed an interim application seeking a stay on the proposed deportation of 7 Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.
The bench, also comprising of Justices S. K. Kaul and K. M. Joseph, attached weight to the Centre’s submission that the said refugees have been found to be illegal immigrants.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing on behalf of the petitioners, advanced that these persons had arrived in 2012, fleeing for their lives as the barbarianism and the genocide had started then.
These people were the first to migrate and the Myanmar governmenthas refused to recognize them as their citizens and they are currently considered as stateless individuals. Every UN agency stated this instance as the worst one of mass killings, one they have never seen before, where tens of thousands of people were slaughtered, been through unimaginable torture. About 500,000 of them fled to Bangladesh and around 40-50 thousand to India to save their lives and they are not illegal immigrants but only refugees, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees also agrees. Demanding for an UN Human Rights Commissioner to go and inspect the situation,they insist that they cannot be compelled to return under duress. In his turn, ASG Tushar Mehta contended that these conclusions are based on newspaper reports.The state of Assam has received the details of 19 persons including these 7, who had entered India as illegal immigrants and were arrested under the Foreigners’ Act. The Myanmar government has now agreed to issue the Certificate of Identity, a travel document issued in the absence of any other identification document,to these people. The government has even sought the help our External Affairs Ministry with the deportation of these people to Myanmar.
The CJI also confirmed that they have been found to be illegal immigrants andtheir country of origin has accepted them as citizens. When the bench proceeded to dismiss the application, not being inclined to intervene, Mr. Bhushan persisted and contended that this is the violation of Article 21 to which the CJI observed that the needed has been done.
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