Supreme Court Says No to Petition Against Assam Government

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a petition seeking a ban on the deportation of persons to Bangladesh, a policy that has been adopted by the Assam government to check the menace of illegal migrants in the state.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma asked the petitioners to approach the Guwahati High Court for an appropriate remedy. The petitioners had sought a ban on the policy of “push backs” undertaken by the Assam government. They had demanded that no person be deported unless approved by the Foreigners Tribunal plus an adequate opportunity to appeal or review the decision of the state government. Over and above these steps, the petitioners wanted the Ministry of External Affairs to verify the nationality of the affected person.

Assam has witnessed a huge influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh and earlier from East Pakistan. This had reached alarming proportions way back in the last quarter of the 20^th century. The situation now is one where illegal migrants are now a huge population in Lower Assam districts of South Salmara-Mankachar, Dhubri, Barpeta and Goalpara. There is total “demographic inversion” in these districts where the indigenous inhabitants are outnumbered by illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

The state government is taking a belated set of steps to “push back” identified illegal migrants back into Bangladesh. The scale of push backs—that don’t number more than a couple of hundred individuals—is dwarfed by the huge swath of illegal migrants who live in these districts and, in fact, have now spread to the middle and upper reaches of the Brahmaputra Valley.

The demand for confirmation of illegal migrants by a judicial tribunal is a classic tactic to ensure that no illegal migrants get deported. These cases linger on for decades on an end and data for deportations based on procedures under the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983 shows the number was pitifully insignificant when compared to the number of illegal migrants. This tactic was one of the reasons for unrest that plagued Assam for a long time.

The Supreme Court did not go into the details of the case and its reasoning was based on the attempts to short-circuit the process by bypassing the Guwahati High Court. Ideally, detection, determination and deportation of illegal migrants is a task that is best left to the government as the power to confer citizenship rests with the executive. It is best to let the Assam government take the steps for ensuring internal and demographic security of that sensitive border state.

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