The move comes after a Rohingya refugee sought to restrain the Central govt from deporting the refugees who completed their jail term in Assam.
New Delhi: A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, dismissed a plea Thursday seeking a stay on the deportation of seven Rohingya Muslims refugees to Myanmar.
The court’s move came after Mohammad Salimullah, a Rohingya refugee living in India, moved a plea Wednesday seeking to restrain the Central government from deporting seven refugees who completed their jail term in Assam for illegally entering the country.
Salimullah, represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan, is also the lead petitioner in a 2017 PIL that challenged the Centre’s 8 August 2017 order which directed states to identify and deport illegal migrants including Rohingya refugees.
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Bhushan mentioned the matter Wednesday before Gogoi, who said that no matter could be mentioned unless there was urgency to it.
In his plea, Salimullah submitted that the seven Rohingya Muslims, who served jail terms for illegal entry in 2012, would be sent back to Myanmar where violence against the ethnic minority has spiked in the Rakhine region.
The Centre’s move, Bhushan said Wednesday, has drawn criticism from the United Nations, which said their forcible return could mean a violation of international law.
“Given the ethnic identity of the men, this is a flagrant denial of their right to protection and could amount to refoulement,” the United Nations (UN) said in a press statement Tuesday.
The UN defines refoulement as forcible expulsion of people who have the right to be recognised as refugees.
“The Indian Government has an international legal obligation to fully acknowledge the institutionalised discrimination, persecution, hate and gross human rights violations these people have faced in their country of origin and provide them the necessary protection,” said Tendayi Achiume, special rapporteur on racism, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
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The plea reminded the top court of its October 2017 advice to the Centre to take a more humanitarian approach towards the refugees. Despite its constitutional and international obligations, the Centre failed to protect the Rohingya refugees by proposing to deport the community to Myanmar where they face serious persecution, added the plea.
The Narendra Modi-led government defended its decision and submitted that these illegal immigrants were a threat to national security and have links with banned terror organisations like ISIS.
Last year, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) took suo motu cognisance of the issue and issued a notice to the Home Ministry.
Officially, the UN identified 14,000 Rohingya Muslims living in India, a sharp contrast from the Home Ministry’s estimates at about 40,000.
I think some fatigue must be setting in in the apex court. It cannot run a nation of 1.3 billion people. There is a government to take care of these things. The UN Secretary General expressed his views clearly on this. India must assess the costs to its global image, and not just on the Rohingyas issue. On human rights, too, we seem not to be doing spectacularly well.