Will bring back Sunali Khatun, son from Bangladesh ‘on humanitarian grounds’, Centre tells SC

In June, Sunali Khatoon and her family were picked up in Delhi, where they were working as daily wage workers, and deported to Bangladesh on the suspicion of being foreign nationals.

The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Wednesday that it was ready to bring back Sunali Khatun and her son from Bangladesh on "humanitarian grounds". (Express)

The Centre on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that it was ready to bring back Sunali Khatun, who was reportedly pregnant when she was deported to Bangladesh along with her eight-year-old son, “on humanitarian grounds”.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta conveyed this to a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi. He added that it “will be without prejudice to our contentions on merits and our right to put them under surveillance”.

The court recorded Mehta’s statement and said in its order, “Solicitor General on instructions informs that purely on humanitarian grounds, the Government of India has agreed to bring back Sunali Khatun along with her eight-year-old son Sabir. Since Sunali was taken into custody from Delhi, the Solicitor General informs that she will be brought back to Delhi. However, there is a suggestion by the learned senior counsel representing the respondents that it will be advisable to shift her to the town where her father stays in the district of Birbhum.”

The bench asked the chief medical officer of Birbhum in West Bengal to provide all medical facilities free of cost to Sunali Khatun, who is pregnant, and asked the state government to take care of the child as well.

The Supreme Court was hearing an appeal by the Centre challenging a Calcutta High Court order directing it to bring back some deportees from Bangladesh on the ground that due procedure for expelling them was not followed.

The high court order came on a habeas corpus petition by one Bhodu Sheikh, who said that he was a permanent resident of West Bengal and that his daughter Sunali Khatun and her family were Indian citizens but were picked up and deported by the police from Delhi, where they were working as daily wage workers in Rohini, in June this year.

Hearing it on December 1, the Supreme Court had asked Mehta to take instructions if Khatun and her son could be brought back to India “on humanitarian ground”.