The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the response of the Central government on a plea seeking direction to the government to release detained illegal Rohingya infiltrators.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Prashant Kumar Mishra issued a notice to the Union government and sought its response within four weeks.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner Priyali Sur submitted many Rohingyas have been detained in facilities across the country and sought their release in order to protect their right to life and equality before the law under Article 21 and Article 14 of the Constitution.
Sur’s plea said the Rohingya are an ethnic minority from Rakhine state in Myanmar and they have been described by the United Nations as the world’s most persecuted ethnic minority.
“They have a history of statelessness since 1980, primarily as a consequence of the 1982 Citizenship Law enacted in Mynamar, which effectively stripped them of their citizenship,” the plea said.
The petition claimed despite this background of ‘persecution and discrimination’, the Rohingyas in India face ‘inhumane treatment and restrictions’. “These include arbitrary arrests and unlawful detentions, limits on freedom of movement outside of camps, limited access to education, limited or no access to basic health care and legal services or any formal employment opportunities,” it said.
It also sought direction to the government to refrain from ‘arbitrarily’ detaining any Rohingya ‘accusing’ them of being illegal immigrants or under the Foreigners Act.
