IA filed in Supreme Court calling for deportation of Rohingya Muslim refugees

Even as the Rohingya Muslim crisis looms large over the international community, an intervention application (IA) has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the government to deport the refugees..The IA has been filed by Indic Collective Trust – an organization “working for the welfare of the interest of Indian tradition, culture and civilization” – in the writ petition filed in the Supreme Court by two Rohingya Muslims. It was drawn and filed by Advocate-on-Record Suvidutt MS and will be argued by J Sai Deepak Iyer..It is contended by the Trust that the 40,000-odd displaced people of the Rohingya community residing in India pose a serious threat not only to national security but also to peacefully living Indian citizens. It states,.“India cannot solve this crisis by importing and welcoming it. Therefore, it is submitted that accommodating Rohingyas in India is equivalent to inviting wretchedness, turbulence and disturbance on the Indian soil.”.Pointing to instances where members of the community have perpetrated violence in Myanmar, the IA states that they could potentially be involved in Islamic terror..“India is among nations worst affected by Islamic terrorism. Thousands of Rohingya refugees, most of them settled in Jammu and Kashmir where already Islamist separatism is raging, are a people ripe for terror hiring and indoctrination….…Pakistan’s terror groups hiring Rohingyas from Bangladesh’s refugee camps, training and arming them. Terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba are already out in shopping spree and recruiting Rohingya forces.”.It is also averred that India is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Refugees, and that Sections 3 and 8 of the Foreigners Act, 1946 authorise the central government to prohibit the entry of foreigners and expel them from the country respectively..Further, although foreigners are protected by the Right to Life and Liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution, this does not include the right to reside and settle in the country of India..The matter was mentioned last week by Advocate Prashant Bhushan before a Bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud. The Court has asked the Centre about why it wants to deport Rohingya Muslims..The petitioners had approached the Supreme Court contending that the proposed deportation is contrary to the Constitutional protections of Article 14, Article 21 and Article 51(c) of the Constitution of India, which provides equal rights and liberty to every ‘person’. It is also their argument that this act would fall foul of the principle of ‘Non-Refoulement’, which has been widely recognised as a principle of customary International Law..Read the IA: