In a courtroom heavy with tension and unresolved displacement, the Supreme Court of India has once again drawn a hard line. If Rohingya refugees are found to be foreigners under Indian law, the Court declared, deportation is the consequence—no matter what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has scribbled on their ID cards.
A Bench comprising Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta, and N. Kotiswar Singh made it unmistakably clear: international documentation holds no sway against domestic law. “If they are foreigners as per the Foreigners Act, then they have to be deported,” Justice Datta bluntly stated, referencing the Court’s earlier stance on the issue.
The remarks came amid a set of petitions—some seeking basic dignities for Rohingya refugees, others demanding their removal. Advocates Colin Gonsalves and Prashant Bhushan, representing some of the refugees, pushed back. Gonsalves recounted that just the previous night, several individuals—UNHCR cards in hand, children in tow—were detained and sent back. “We have affidavits. This is shocking,” he said.
But the government’s position remains unyielding. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta emphasized that India has never signed the UN Refugee Convention, and therefore, the UNHCR cards carry no legal shield in the country’s eyes. According to him, even the authenticity of these cards is questionable.
Bhushan countered that many of these individuals are effectively stateless, with Myanmar refusing to accept them. He also reminded the court that the previous ruling dismissing the significance of UNHCR cards was only an interim order. That argument did not sway the Bench, which responded that no new interim protections are needed in light of its April 2021 decision—one that had already greenlit deportations of Rohingya settled in Jammu and Kashmir.
For now, the legal limbo persists. The case will continue on May 14, but the message from the country’s highest court is already etched in stone: international sympathy does not override national sovereignty.
