Supreme Court To Hear On 8 May Pleas Relating To Deportation & Living Conditions Of Rohingya Refugees

The Supreme Court today listed for hearing on 8 May a batch of petitions/public interest litigations pertaining to deportation and living conditions of Rohingya refugees.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh passed the order.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan (for petitioners in one of the petitions) submitted during the hearing that Rohingya refugees, who have suffered ethnic cleansing and genocide in Myanmar, have been declared as stateless persons by the Myanmar government. Yet, they are sought to be deported "in shackles" to the very country which is not accepting them as citizens.

He informed the Court that certain developments have taken place since the last hearing in the matter and sought liberty to file an additional affidavit.

Further, the counsel referred to an order dated 11.05.2018 passed by the Court in the instant matter to urge that at the time, the Court had directed a Committee to examine the living conditions of Rohingya refugees and the Committee had given a report. He prayed that the Court direct a legal services authority or any other authority to examine the current living conditions of Rohingya refugees as the same have deteriorated. 

The bench however refrained from passing an order to the above effect at this point. When a counsel on the respondents' side informed that in total, there are about 18-19 cases on the issue, of which 11-12 were listed before the bench today, Justice Kant expressed that the Court would tag them all together.

Posting the matter to 8 May, the bench gave liberty to all the petitioners to file additional affidavits and documents that may be required for proper and effective adjudication of the matter.

Notably, the Supreme Court recently disposed of a petition seeking admission for Rohingya refugee children in Delhi schools, observing that the appropriate course of action would be for the children to first approach the concerned government schools (to which they claim eligibility). If they are then denied admission (despite being eligible), the children would be at liberty to approach the Delhi High Court, the Court said.

While dealing with another PIL seeking government benefits and school admissions for Rohingya refugees, the Court, last month, said that education shall be provided to all children without discrimination, but first the status of residence of the Rohingya families needed to be ascertained. Subsequently, this petition was however disposed of in view of an order in a similar petition, with the Court noting that it wants Rohingya children to approach schools for admission first.

Appearance: Senior Advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Colin Gonsalves; Advocate Prashant Bhushan

Case Title: JAFFAR ULLAH AND ANR. Versus U.O.I AND ORS., W.P.(C) No. 859/2013 (and connected cases)