The Karnataka government which on October 25 had told the Supreme Court that it has no immediate plans to deport Rohingya people living in the state capital Bengaluru, has now retracted from its previous stand. In the new affidavit filed by KN Vanaja, Under-secretary in the state Department of Home, it has been informed that 126 Rohingyas have been identified living in Karnataka, but they are not living in any camp or detention centre.
“This Respondent undertakes that whatever the order that would be passed by this court will be scrupulously adhered to and followed in its letter and spirit,” the affidavit reads.
BJP led Karnataka government has filed a revised affidavit in Supreme Court on the deportation of Rohingyas and retracted from its earlier stand that there is no plan to deport Rohingyas living in Bengaluru. pic.twitter.com/oX0k1DpD2p
— ANI (@ANI) October 30, 2021
The fresh petition is a complete change of the position of government from the position made in the first affidavit. In the first affidavit, the Karnataka government headed by chief minister Basavaraj S Bommai had told the apex court it had no plan to take any coercive action against Rohingyas. “72 Rohingyas identified in Bengaluru City are working in various fields and Bengaluru City police have not taken any coercive action against them as of now and there is no immediate plan of deporting them,” the affidavit had said which was filed by YS Chandrashekhara, a police inspector in the office of the director-general and inspector general of police.
The Karnataka government had said this while responding to a PIL filed by an advocate and former spokesperson of Delhi BJP Ashwini Upadhyay. In the PIL filed in 2017, the petitioner had urged the court to pass suitable directions to the Centre and state governments to identify, detain and deport all illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya immigrants within a year. Upadhyay had also demanded proper legislation to make illegal immigration and infiltration a cognizable non-bailable offence and declaring the making of fabricated identity cards a non-bailable offence. While stating no coercive action will be taken, the Karnataka government had even sought dismissal of the PIL stating that it had no merit and hence not maintainable.
It is not known that what forced the state government to change its mind. But the possibility can’t be denied that such a blatant defence to illegal immigrants might have upset the Centre and the BJP leadership.
Centre has a clear stand on illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya immigrants
It had surprised many when the BJP government in Karnataka had denied any deportation plan of these illegal immigrants since it was in sharp contrast to what the BJP and the BJP led Central government have been maintaining on this issue.
In August 2017, the then Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiu had informed the Parliament that states had been directed to detect and deport illegal immigrants, including Rohingya people.
A number of cases related to the deportation of Rohingyas are pending before the Supreme Court. In all these cases the Centre took a clear stand that Rohingyas are ‘absolutely illegal immigrants’ who posed ‘serious threats to the national security.
When lawyer Prashant Bhushan was arguing the case of one such illegal Rohingya Mohammad Salimullah before the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had told the court that Rohingyas will have to be deported. This case was related to the deportation of at least 150 Rohingyas detained in a Jammu prison and their deportation to Myanmar.
The Centre in its affidavit had said that illegal immigrants can’t claim fundamental rights to stay in India. The Centre’s stand was quite clear that it has to first secure the interests of its own citizens before those of illegal immigrants. The Centre had said that illegal immigrants were casting a burden on the already depleting natural resources of the country in addition to posing a security threat. The Supreme Court had rejected the petition of Prashant Bhushan.
In 2018 also when the issue of detention and deportation of some Rohingyas from Assam had cropped up the Union ministry of Home & Affairs had taken a similar stand that illegal immigrants had to be suspended out of Indian territory in the national interest.
