Ranchi: Jharkhand High Court has warned that a contempt case will be filed if the affidavit submitted by the state government linked to the infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals turns out to be false. The court’s observation came during the hearing of a petition filed by Sayeed Daniel Danish on Thursday, September 5.
According to the reports, a bench of Acting Chief Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad and Justice AK Rai while expressing their bewilderment over the affidavit filed by DCs of Dumka, Pakur, Sahibganj, Deoghar, Godda and Jamtara in which they have submitted that no infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals has taken place warned that contempt cases will be filed if the declaration turned to be untrue.
Meanwhile appearing for the union government, Solicitor General of India (SG), Tushar Mehta who joined the court’s proceedings virtually informed the bench, that the growing presence of Bangladeshi infiltrator in Santhal Pargana of the state is alarming. The infiltrators could also enter other states through Jharkhand and affect the population there.
He further informed that the dwindling of population of tribal community in Santhal due to Bangladeshi infiltrators is a serious issue and the union government is studying it profoundly.
बांग्लादेशी घुसपैठ मामले में झारखंड हाईकोर्ट की तल्ख टिप्पणी।
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“The union government will file a consolidated affidavit on this sensitive issue after consulting with all the stake holders including the IB and the Border Security Force (BSF). For that we need time,” submitted Mehta to which the bench agreed and directed the centre to file a reply while scheduling the matter for hearing on September 12.
The bench during the hearing also instructed the SG to file a written application before the court on his request of excluding Intelligence Bureau (IB) to file a reply before the court into the case.
Earlier, SG Mehta requested the bench that IB should be removed from the list of respondent given the agency possesses a lot of secret information which cannot be made public. He further submitted that the union government could include the data received from the IB in its comprehensive report. The bench then instructed the Centre to file an application in regard with the request.
Notably the High Court in the previous hearing of the matter had asked the DCs that how come the tribal population has reduced if no infiltration has taken place in the region, what are the reason behind the decline in the tribal population? It had also pulled up the central agencies for their late response into the matter and directed the concerned agencies to file a response during the next hearing.
The court had also questioned the state that why services of special branch is not being utilised to identify the illegal infiltration. The observation came in response of the state government’s earlier submission that local authorities including the police administration are facing difficulty in identifying such infiltrators.
Significantly, the High Court on July 3 had issued directives to the state and union governments to make an action plan to identify and deport illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators from tribal-dominated Santhal division of the state.
This comes after the petitioner in his plea had claimed that a surge has been noted in emergence of Madrasas in the Santhal region along incidents linked to illegal infiltrators exploiting local women of Scheduled Tribes (ST) community and occupying their lands through means of conversion and marriages which needs to be stopped.
The petition further had indicated about the possible planned involvement of certain banned Bangladeshi groups behind the surge in such cases following which the court had instructed the DCs of all the district under the Santhal division to prepare an action plan and take steps to stop illegal Bangladeshi intruders from entering the state.
