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The Hindu
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Deportation may not require legal process: Himanta Biswa Sarma
The Assam Government may follow a 1950 order to fast-track the detection and deportation of 'illegal immigrants' instead of going through a long legal process, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Saturday (June 7, 2025). He said illegal immigrants, once detected, will henceforth be pushed back without referring their cases to the quasi-judicial Foreigners Tribunal (FT) or any court. 'The process of detecting and deporting foreigners staying illegally in Assam was slowed down due to the exercise to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC). We can now push back such people without going through tribunals,' the Chief Minister told journalists at Ghagrapar in western Assam's Nalbari district. Assam has 100 FTs, the first few of which were established in 2005 to adjudicate the citizenship of people referred by the Assam Police's border wing on suspicion of being illegal immigrants, a euphemism for Bangladeshi nationals allegedly staying illegally in the State. Mr. Sarma said that a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court, while hearing a case related to Article 6A of the 1955 Citizenship Act, said Assam didn't need to route the cases of illegal immigrants through the tribunals. 'The Supreme Court observed that an old law, the Immigrants Expulsion Order (1950), continues to be valid. Under its provisions, even a District Commissioner can issue an order to immediately pushback illegal immigrants,' he said. The Chief Minister said that the State Government, made aware of this order recently, would deliberate on the matter thoroughly before implementation. 'We have already pushed back a large number of people, except those with ongoing court cases. The number of illegal immigrants being deported is increasing and will continue to do so at a faster pace,' Mr. Sarma said. Also Read | Ground Zero: The 'suspected foreigners' of Assam Barrage of criticism The Chief Minister's view on the deportation process follows criticisms of its recent pushback drive from minority organisations and rights activists. On May 28, the government pushed back 14 people — all Bengali-speaking Muslims, who were declared foreigners by the FTs or facing charges as 'illegal immigrants' — into Bangladesh. Not accepted by Bangladesh, these 14 people spent more than two days on the no man's land (the neutral zone on the border between any two countries) before they were sent home in Assam. These organisations accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Government of indiscriminately detaining and deporting people suspected of being foreigners, without proper verification. On June 2, the Supreme Court declined to entertain a petition filed by the All BTC Minority Students' Union, which challenged the Assam government's alleged arbitrary deportation measures. BTC expands to the Bodoland Territorial Council. In May, the Ministry of External Affairs urged Dhaka to expedite the nationality verification process to facilitate deportations. The Ministry's spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said more than 2,000 verification cases were pending with the Bangladesh government.
Indian Express
02-06-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Assam man says mother detained, Supreme Court to hear plea
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
Indian Express
31-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Woman ‘pushed into Bangladesh' during Assam crackdown, brought back after officials found ‘mismatch'
A woman from Assam's Golaghat district was detained by the police, allegedly taken to the Bangladesh border by security forces, and told to cross — before authorities realised there had been an error in her case and brought her back. Rahima Begum (50) is among several people to have been detained in Assam in the past few weeks as part of an ongoing crackdown on people who have been declared foreigners by the state's Foreigners Tribunals (FTs). According to her lawyer, a Foreigners Tribunal ruled last month that Begum's family had entered India before March 25, 1971, the cut-off date for citizenship in Assam. On Friday, invoking a Supreme Court order, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had confirmed that the state is pushing declared foreigners across the international border into Bangladesh. Begum, who returned home to her family in Golaghat's 2 Padumoni village on Friday evening, alleged she was 'pushed into Bangladesh' with a group of people on Tuesday night. 'On Sunday morning (May 25) at around 4 am, when we were still sleeping, police came to our home and told me to report to the police station to answer some questions. After spending the morning there, they took me to the Golaghat Superintendent of Police's office with some others. I took my documents, and they collected our fingerprints. We were there the whole day. At night, they took us somewhere else in a vehicle,' she said, adding that she didn't know where she was taken. 'Two of our daughters were there, and they saw their mother taken away at night. But nobody told us where she was all these days,' said her husband, Malek Ali. 'Late Tuesday night, they put us in a few cars and took us near the border,' she alleged. 'The security forces who were with us gave us some Bangladeshi currency, told us to cross and not return. It was all paddy fields with mud and water up to our knees. We didn't know what to do; we just walked between the paddy fields until we reached a village. But the people there chased us away and their border forces called us, beat us a lot and told us to go back to where we came from.' 'We spent the whole day standing in a paddy field and drinking the water from it because we could not go to either side,' she said. '(On Thursday evening), the forces on the Indian side called us back, took the Bangladesh currency, put us in vehicles and took us to Kokrajhar. I don't know about what happened to the rest of the people, but I was brought to Golaghat. I don't know why this happened to me; I have all my papers. I completed my FT case after fighting it for more than two years.' Her husband got a call on Friday afternoon to pick her up from Golaghat town. The BSF Guwahati Frontier and the Golaghat SP Rajen Singh did not respond to calls and messages seeking a comment. Advocate Lipika Deb, who handled Begum's case in the Jorhat FT, said the family called her on Sunday, saying that she had been taken away along with others suspected to be foreigners. According to Deb, the tribunal declared her as 'post-stream', which is used to refer to cases in which entry into India is said to be between January 1, 1966 and March 25, 1971, after which the person has been an ordinary resident of Assam, where in line with Section 6A(3) of the Citizenship Act, the person has to be registered within 30 days with the relevant Foreigners Registration Office (FRRO). According to the Act, such a person will have their name struck from electoral rolls for 10 years, but during that time they will have 'the same rights and obligations as a citizen of India.' At the end of the period, they 'shall be deemed to be a citizen of India for all purposes.' 'After checking with the police and the FRRO office in Jorhat, where we had registered her, we found that there was a mismatch in a digit in the registration number in her certificate. We approached the SP about the mismatch, and now she has returned. But it's unfortunate that the verification was not thorough. If there was a mismatch, the authorities should have called the registration office to cross-check,' she said.
Time of India
31-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Plea in Supreme Court challenges Assam's ‘push back' drive against alleged foreigners
NEW DELHI: A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court alleging that the Assam government has launched a "sweeping and indiscriminate drive" to detain and deport people suspected to be foreigners without proper verification of their nationality or exhausting legal remedies. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Filed by the All BTC Minority Students Union through advocate Adeel Ahmed, the petition refers to a Supreme Court order dated February 4, which had directed the state to deport 63 declared foreign nationals whose nationalities were confirmed. The petition claims that the state has misinterpreted that directive and is now carrying out arbitrary detentions even in cases where individuals have not been declared foreigners by tribunals. Citing news reports, including one about a retired school teacher allegedly "pushed back" into Bangladesh, the petition says such actions indicate a growing trend of informal deportations without judicial oversight. 'These push backs are reportedly being executed in border districts such as Dhubri, South Salmara, and Goalpara,' it states, warning that poor and marginalised Indian citizens may be wrongfully detained and deported. The plea argues that this "push back" policy violates Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, equality before law and protection of life and personal liberty, by denying individuals due process, legal representation, and the right to appeal. It seeks a direction from the apex court to ensure that no person is deported without a formal declaration by a Foreigners Tribunal, verification by the ministry of external affairs, and access to legal remedies. It also urges the Court to declare Assam's current deportation mechanism unconstitutional and in violation of previous judicial precedents.
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Business Standard
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
CM Himanta vows rapid action to identify, deport foreign nationals in Assam
CM Himanta vows rapid action to identify, deport foreign nationals in Assam Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday said the process of identifying foreign nationals in the state would be accelerated, with legal action to follow against those already declared as foreigners. Speaking at a press conference, Sarma clarified that individuals labelled as foreigners by the Foreigners Tribunal have the right to challenge the decision in the Gauhati High Court. "We have not taken action against those who have stated that they have appeals pending before the Supreme Court or the High Court, but those who have not appealed in the higher judiciary will be pushed back," the chief minister said. He mentioned that during a recent meeting with district police heads, it was decided to intensify efforts to detect foreigners. Referring to a recent incident, Sarma said that 35 Bangladeshi nationals who entered India through the international border in Meghalaya and Silchar, Assam, had been sent back. He made it clear that if someone does not legally challenge a tribunal's declaration of them as a foreign national, "their right to stay in Assam is forfeited." "It is all about the judicial process and we are working as per the law. If the judiciary has given a stay order, we respect it, but if there is no order, they will be pushed back," he emphasised. Sarma also referred to a Supreme Court directive that called for the deportation of declared foreign nationals. Speaking about a recent case involving a retired schoolteacher, Sarma said the individual had claimed their case was pending in the Supreme Court. "Those who have the court order have been allowed to stay," he said, stressing that legal documentation must be shown to the police in such cases. Sarma explained that the overall process involves identifying foreign nationals, pushing them back where necessary, and, in some cases, working with the central government to coordinate deportation with Bangladesh. He also raised concerns that around 30,000 people declared as foreigners were untraceable. "If we find them somewhere, we will have to take action," he stated. On Thursday, the Gauhati High Court issued a notice to the state government asking for the whereabouts of two brothers declared foreigners and questioned the "arbitrary arrest of declared foreigners who are apprehending illegal push back." In recent days, the Assam Border Police have detained several individuals suspected of being Bangladeshi immigrants from different parts of the state.
