The Supreme Court Thursday refused to grant any relief to the Rohingyas housed in holding centres in Jammu & Kashmir.
The petitioners had asked for relief from deportation and release from the holding centres.
A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian passed the order in a PIL filed by Mohammad Salimullah, a Rohingya.
However, the Court added the Rohingyas have to be deported following the due procedure.
The order read, “It is not possible to grant the interim relief. However, it is made clear that the Rohingyas in Jammu, on whose behalf the application has been moved, shall not be deported unless the procedure prescribed for such deportation is followed.”
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for the Rohingyas, had requested the Court to pas an order to the Union government to provide refugee papers to the Rohingyas.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had opposed the move arguing a similar petition for Rohingyas in Assam was dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Also, the Solicitor General had argued that Rohingyas were not refugees but ‘illegal migrants’.
“India cannot be a capital for all illegal migrants of the world” the SG had argued.
