Calcutta High Court Questions Deportation On Suspicion, Stays Murshidabad Man’s Removal

A Calcutta High Court judge said on Thursday that the State cannot brand a person Bangladeshi and deport him on suspicion alone. Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya made the remark while hearing a challenge to the detention and planned deportation of a Murshidabad man.

Justice Saugata Bhattacharyya made the remark in open court on Thursday while hearing a petition from the man’s wife. She challenged the Foreigners Regional Registration Office’s order to deport the couple and the detention of her husband. The wife has not been detained.

The deportation order “has been kept in abeyance”, the judge said. He also said the authorities must allow enough time for people to establish their citizenship before they take coercive action.

Detention And Petition

The dispute centres on the husband’s continued custody. His lawyer, Rabiul Islam, told the court that the man had been detained since August 8 and that the case against him rested on local suspicion.

“My client has been under detention for over two months. The basis of his detention was suspicion generated from the statements of a few neighbours,” Islam said.

Justice Bhattacharyya questioned both the detention and the process behind it. “It seems that the authorities concerned have not given a chance to the petitioner (detainee),” Justice Bhattacharyya said. He asked why the man continued to remain in custody for two months and why the authorities had not followed “a clear and demonstrable process” to establish his nationality.

He questioned whether nationality could ever be fixed on the strength of such claims alone. A person cannot be held without due process, the judge said.

Court Transfers Matter

The judge widened the issue beyond the individual case. “Since the 1970s, how many have crossed the border? Is it possible to send all of them back?” he asked in court.

He then sent the matter back to the chief justice of the high court so that it could be assigned to “a proper bench”. Before doing so, he also remarked on the need to verify documents before any deportation decision.

“So, the government should properly check the documents before deciding to deport any person. Based on statements from some people, one cannot conclude that the person concerned is an infiltrator,” Justice Bhattacharyya said.

Additional advocate-general Rajdeep Majumdar, appearing for the state government, suggested that the detainee may have obtained documents such as the voter card, Aadhaar and PAN card on the basis of forged papers.

The hearing comes against a wider backdrop. Many BJP-ruled states have, since the middle of last year, faced allegations of branding Bengali-speaking Muslim migrant workers as illegal Bangladeshis and having them pushed into Bangladesh with the help of the BSF without court or tribunal orders.

Days after the BJP came to power in Bengal, the new government announced a “detain, delete, deport” policy under which police were to detain suspected Bangladeshis at “holding centres” and summarily push them into Bangladesh. In July, four such deported Indians, including a woman and two children, were brought back on court orders through the Mahadipurland port in Malda after spending nearly a year in Bangladesh.

National Identity Debate

The high court’s observations come as disputes over documentation, citizenship and electoral identity have become part of a wider national argument.

The row centres on a controversial special intensive revision of electoral rolls that has removed about 13 crore voters across India. Opposition parties and civil society groups say the exercise has left out millions of genuine voters to aid the BJP.

In Bengal, many of those removed from the rolls have also lost welfare support and live with the fear that they may be branded illegal migrants and sent out of the country. Protests have now spread across India, with demonstrators seeking the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, whom critics call the architect and enforcer of the SIR.