New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Centre’s response on a plea by two Sudanese nationals — staying in India as refugees — who have been ordered to be deported allegedly for violating their conditions of stay. The bench of Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud sought the Centre’s response by Friday after initially showing its reluctance to interfere with the order directing their deportation to their strife-torn native country.
The Delhi-based Foreigner Regional Registration Office on December 28 ordered the deportation of Amir Ahmed Khamis Ahmed and Aliu Bilal Salih Eisa. Next day, they were shifted to Lampur Seva Sadan detention centre in Nerala on the outskirts of Delhi. The Sudanese nationals invited deportation after they left Bangaluru, where they were staying as refugees for the last three years, and came to Delhi without permission.
“Just close your eyes, if it is the US what will happen,” Chief Justice Khehar asked senior counsel Colin Gonsalves, who appeared for the Sudanese nationals challenging their deportation. Without missing on what the bench was driving at, Gonsalves told the court that in Europe they would have been punished for their illegal action but not deported back to their country. The court was told that the two foreign nationals have already lost their father, brother and a cousin in the civil war in Sudan.
Gonsalves pleaded that the UN High Commissioner on Refugees and the government should take a call on their fate. Pointing to too much of indulgence that Indian courts give to violators of law, Khehar asked “Why should we show any magnanimity” towards them. “We ask for our criminals from other countries and we don’t get,” Khehar said. When Gonsalves pleaded that “I (his client) will suffer”, the Chief Justice responded: “What suffer? There is a breach after breach (of law).”
