Court finds Centre’s actions unlawful and mandates the return of families to West Bengal promptly.
The Calcutta High Court recently set aside the Indian government’s deportation order affecting two families of migrant workers from Birbhum district, West Bengal. This decision comes after the families were forcibly pushed into Bangladesh earlier this year. A division bench, consisting of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Ritabrata Kumar Mitra, stated that the government acted in ‘hot haste’ to deport the individuals, which constituted a clear violation of legal protocols.
The court has mandated that the six individuals, including an eight-month pregnant woman named Sunali Khatun, be returned to West Bengal within four weeks. The judges also dismissed the Centre’s request for a stay on the order, emphasizing that the deportation was improper.
Since May, there has been a significant uptick in the number of Bengali-speaking migrant workers being detained in various states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). These individuals have been compelled to prove their citizenship status, with many being labeled as undocumented immigrants. Reports indicate that some workers have been categorized as foreigners and expelled to Bangladesh within a matter of days, despite their claims of being Indian citizens.
The court highlighted that the deportation process violated a memo issued on May 2. It asserted that citizenship issues should be evaluated based on adequate documentation and evidence, to be assessed by the appropriate legal authorities. The judges had previously instructed the Centre to submit an affidavit detailing the deportation procedures and to reveal the specific locations from which the families were expelled.
In its response, the Centre contended that the detainees were Bangladeshi nationals. However, Sunali Khatun’s relatives contested this claim, asserting that she, along with her husband Danish Sheikh and their eight-year-old child, had been detained in Delhi in June and subsequently forced across the border. Concerned about the citizenship status of her unborn child, Khatun’s father, Bhodu Sheikh, filed a petition with the High Court.
Another family affected by this deportation order included Sweety Bibi, 32, and her two sons, aged six and 16, also from Birbhum. Both families had been held at the KN Katju Marg police station in Delhi prior to their classification as ‘Bangladeshi citizens’ and subsequent deportation.
The ruling has been welcomed by Trinamool Congress MP Samirul Islam, who described it as a significant rebuke to the BJP’s policies perceived as anti-Bengali and anti-poor. In a social media statement, he remarked on the court’s decision, asserting that it exposed the government’s attempt to mislabel the individuals as Bangladeshi nationals. He characterized the outcome as a victory not just for himself but for Bengal as a whole.
