UK academic Filippo Osella moves Delhi High Court challenging his deportation

United Kingdom-based anthropologist Professor Filippo Osella has approached the Delhi High Court challenging his deportation from Thiruvananthapuram airport [Filippo Osella v Union of India and Ors]..Osella, a South Asian specialist and professor at University of Sussex who has worked in Kerala for years, had landed at Thiruvananthapuram airport in March this year but was deported barely an hour later without being presented with any grounds for the same..The deportation had created a political backlash and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to look into the matter with seriousness and issue instructions to prevent such incidents in future.Osella has now sought a direction to the government to present the records which led to him being sent back to the UK..The petition was heard by single-judge Justice Yashwant Varma on Monday who asked the counsel appearing for Central government to obtain instructions on the issue and listed the case for further hearing on October 12..In his plea, Osella has argued that he has been working on his research on the artisanal fishing community of Kerala and had already received a valid research visa from the Indian High Commission for twelve months.But when he landed at the airport early morning, he was denied entry and was forcibly deported, the plea said.“Reasons were disturbingly absent in this high handed and arbitrary conduct of the Immigration authorities at Thiruvananthapuram airport. By 4:30 AM, the Professor was literally marched back and bundled into the same aircraft, in which he had arrived and was unjustly deported - much like a hardened criminal. The Petitioner’s request for his blood pressure medications from his luggage was also not allowed creating extreme anxiety, hypertension and panic,” Osella told the court.