NEW DELHI: Pitching for the rights of Rohingyas, senior advocate Fali Nariman Tuesday told the Supreme Court that the government cannot paint everybody as a terrorist and that India is a signatory to various international conventions, while opposing the Centre’s stand of deporting Rohingyas.
Nariman said, “I am the original refugee from Burma.” and had migrated from “British Burma to British India” and assailed the Centre’s stand that illegal refugees cannot claim protection of their fundamental rights under the Constitution as it would adversely affect the rights of Indian citizens and the issue was not justiciable. He said, “Humanitarian concern for children, women, the sick outweigh justiciability.”
Nariman said the government was contradicting itself while referring to a past notification on ways to deal with migrants, mostly Hindus and Buddhists, from Pakistan and Bangladesh, who had suffered persecution. He said terrorists from any group should be dealt with as per the law, but innocent refugees, including women and children, need protection.
However, a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra made it clear to the Centre and two Rohingya Muslims, who have challenged any move to deport illegal refugees to Myanmar, to desist from making emotional arguments and personal attacks and asked them to file documents, including international conventions.
The government claimed that the crisis over its move to deport 40,000 Rohingyas was not justiciable and is outside the domain of the judiciary. But the bench rejected this stand outright and said, “I, for one, believe, from my past experience of 40 years, that when a petition like this comes to us under Article 32 of the Constitution, the court should be very slow in abdicating its jurisdiction.”
The court fixed the batch of pleas for and against the Rohingyas for hearing on October 13, said it will hear arguments only on the points of law as the matter concerned the humanitarian cause and humanity which required to be heard with mutual respect.
Additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, said the rejoinder affidavit of the two Rohingya petitioners needed to be replied to alongwith the two fresh petitions filed during the recent court vacation. Earlier, the Centre in an affidavit had termed Rohingya refugees as illegal immigrants and their presence in the country will pose a serious national security threat.
The Centre, in another affidavit, told the court that Rohingya refugees were mostly Muslims and cannot claim asylum on grounds of parity with Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists who were given this reprieve after they fled Pakistan and Bangladesh due to religious persecution.
The affidavit maintained there were many factors that require to be considered before allowing a set of illegal immigrants to enter and stay in India, and no other group can allege discrimination in these matters.
“Considering the very nature of such a decision which are to be taken on a case-to-case basis, there cannot be any comparison or claim of discrimination based upon some earlier decision taken with respect to one set of illegal immigrants vis-à-vis another set of illegal immigrants,” stated Mukesh Mittal, joint secretary (Foreigners Division) at the Ministry of Home Affairs.
“The framers of the Constitution would not have envisaged a situation where thousands and thousands of people would be flowing into this country entering illegally without any valid travel documents and start claiming fundamental rights as non-citizens,” the affidavit said.