Assam man says mother detained, Supreme Court to hear plea

Indian Express

3 days ago

The Supreme Court has agreed to take up next week a Habeas Corpus petition filed by a man from Assam, who alleged that his mother has been picked up for deportation, and her whereabouts since then are not known.
Initially, the Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Satish Chandra Sharma said it will tag the petition with a pending plea on illegal immigrants.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, however, urged the court to issue notice so that the State can reply. 'We don't know. Son doesn't know. Let them say. If she is in Bangladesh, it's another matter,' Sibal said, contending that the arrest of the petitioner's mother violated norms on arrest laid down by the SC in the D K Basu case.
'Your Lordships know she has to be produced within 24 hours. She is not produced. Picked up from the house. Directly in violation of the D K Basu judgment. SP (Superintendent of Police) goes to the house, picks her up and throws her. How can that be?' the senior counsel submitted.
The petitioner, 26-year-old Iunuch (Yunus) Ali, has alleged that his mother Monowara Bewa was detained on May 24 after being called to the Dhubri police station on the pretext of recording her statement.
The plea also sought a direction restraining the deportation or 'push back' of the detainee across any Indian border.
Sibal said that the woman had previously filed a special leave petition (SLP) in the apex court, which is still pending, and that she had also been granted bail, yet she was being 'thrown out'.
The SLP challenges the decision of the Gauhati High Court, which upheld a Foreigners Tribunal ruling declaring Bewa a foreigner – a decision that has remained under challenge before the apex court since 2017. Bewa was on bail since December 12, 2019, following a Supreme Court order in this regard.
The court issued notice and fixed the hearing for early next week.
The top court, however, refused to entertain a plea challenging the Assam government's move to deport Bangladeshis who have entered the country illegally.
The Bench asked the petitioner, the All BTC Minority Students Union (ABMSU), to approach the Guwahati High Court.
'69 people are being deported, please go to the Guwahati High Court,' the court said.
On February 4, a Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan had asked the state to do the needful to deport 63 declared foreigners. The government had then said that it was awaiting confirmation of their nationality. They were subsequently confirmed to be Bangladeshi nationals.
The petition alleged that using this order as an excuse, the state '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.'
Citing some of the alleged deportations, the plea argued that 'these instances are not isolated, but part of an emerging pattern where individuals are detained and deported without Foreigners Tribunal declarations, nationality verification by the MEA, or even an opportunity to appeal.'
'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,' the ABMSU claimed.– With PTI