Calcutta High Court seeks report on deportation of six Bengali-speaking Indians to Bangladesh
PARBATTA NEWS DESK
The Calcutta High Court on Friday ordered India’s Ministry of Home Affairs to submit a report on the recent deportation of six people—including an eight-year-old boy and other family members—to Bangladesh by the Delhi Police, The Times of India reported.
The court gave the central ministry until Wednesday to respond and also directed the chief secretary of West Bengal to contact his counterpart in Delhi and file a separate report.
The directive came during hearings on two habeas corpus petitions before a bench comprising Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobroto Kumar Mitra. One petition alleged that a minor boy and his parents had been deported, while the other referred to the deportation of three relatives of the same family.
“In view of the nature of the allegations, prima facie, we are of the opinion that the writ petition is maintainable, and this court cannot be a silent spectator,” the bench observed. The judges instructed officials to present all relevant documents to determine whether the individuals had been illegally detained and expelled.
The same bench had recently made similar remarks while hearing a petition involving the alleged illegal detention of Bengali-speaking migrants by police in Odisha, stating that courts had a constitutional duty to intervene in human rights violations even if they occurred in another Indian state.
The petitioners’ counsel claimed that the individuals who were deported were Indian citizens and had proper documentation to prove it. According to the report, the counsel said that emails were sent to Delhi Police authorities but remained unanswered. The deportations reportedly occurred without referral to the Foreigners’ Tribunal, a legal requirement in such cases. The state’s counsel present in court supported these claims.
In the case of the second family from Birbhum, their counsel told the court they were taken from an area under Rohini police jurisdiction in Delhi and sent to Bangladesh.
Justice Chakraborty, referencing a petition from the previous day, indicated that the court would issue similar directions. The petitioners’ counsel noted that detainees from the Odisha case had since been released and returned home.
The bench also requested senior counsel Dhiraj Trivedi, representing the central government, to assist the court in the matter, according to The Times of India.
