New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday defended its policy decision to deport 40,000 Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar and asked the Supreme Court not to interfere with it. The Centre said deportation would be essentially a core executive function in the realm of policy with respect to dealing with illegal immigrants and is not justiciable.
Additional Solicitor General Tushar Metha, submitted before a three-judge bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chadrachud that Centre was raising preliminary objections with regard to the maintainability of the petitions. He said the illegal immigrants would not get and cannot claim any of the fundamental rights which are otherwise available to ‘non-citizens’.
He told the court that such decisions are taken on a case to case basis and are based upon several facts, situations and considerations, which would include diplomatic, internal security considerations, potential demographic changes, possibility of law and order, sharing of national resources, sustainability of an additional burden on the resources of the country etc.
The CJI disagreed with the ASG and said the power and jurisdiction of the apex court would depend on facts. He said there are a catena of decisions on the jurisdiction of the apex court and cannot be curtailed. He said it would be difficult to accept the lack of jurisdiction of the court in a matter concerning human rights. The CJI directed the parties to the petition to compile a list of government notifications, treaties and conventions relevant to the issue of refugee law in India.
