Guwahati: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea which alleged that the Assam government has reportedly launched a “sweeping” drive to detain and deport persons suspected to be foreigners without nationality verification or exhaustion of legal remedies.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Satish Chandra Sharma told the petitioner to approach the Gauhati High Court in the matter.
The bench declined to intervene and directed the petitioner to approach the Gauhati High Court for appropriate relief.
“Why are you not going to the Gauhati High Court?” the bench asked senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, who appeared for the petitioner, All BTC Minority Students Union.
Hegde said the petitioner would withdraw the plea to take appropriate recourse before the high court. The bench allowed him to withdraw the plea.
The plea, filed through advocate Adeel Ahmed, referred to a February 4 order of the top court which, while dealing with a separate petition, had directed Assam to initiate the process of deportation of 63 declared foreign nationals, whose nationality was known, within two weeks.
“Pursuant to the said order … the state of Assam has reportedly launched a sweeping and indiscriminate drive to detain and deport individuals suspected to be foreigners, even in the absence of foreigners tribunal declarations, nationality verification, or exhaustion of legal remedies,” the plea claimed.
It referred to news reports, including one about a retired school teacher who was allegedly “pushed back” into Bangladesh.
“These instances reflect a growing pattern of deportations conducted by the Assam Police and administrative machinery through informal ‘push back’ mechanisms, without any judicial oversight or adherence to the safeguards envisaged by the Constitution of India or this court,” it claimed.
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“The ‘push back’ policy, as implemented, violates Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution by deporting individuals without due process, thereby denying them the opportunity to contest their deportation and infringing upon their right to life and personal liberty,” the plea claimed.
