NEW DELHI: Forty-four former Supreme Court docket and excessive courtroom judges have condemned what they described as a “motivated marketing campaign” focusing on Chief Justice of India Surya Kant over his feedback within the Rohingya migrant case, saying critics had twisted a routine judicial question into accusations of bias, in response to an announcement.“Judicial proceedings can and needs to be topic to honest, reasoned criticism. What we’re witnessing, nonetheless, just isn’t principled disagreement however an try to delegitimize the Judiciary by mischaracterizing a routine courtroom proceedings as an act of prejudice. The Chief Justice is being attacked for asking essentially the most primary authorized query: who, in legislation, has granted the standing that’s being claimed earlier than the Court docket? No adjudication on rights or entitlements can proceed except this threshold is first addressed,” the assertion mentioned.
“Equally, the marketing campaign conveniently omits the Bench’s clear affirmation that no human being on Indian soil, citizen or foreigner, might be subjected to torture, disappearance or inhuman therapy, and that each particular person’s dignity have to be revered. To suppress this after which accuse the Court docket of “dehumanisation” is a critical distortion of what was really mentioned,” the assertion added.The judges mentioned the judiciary’s latest dealing with of petitions associated to Rohingya migrants mirrored a cautious stability between nationwide safety and the rejection of torture or inhuman therapy. “The state of affairs of the Rohingya in Myanmar itself is advanced and can’t be brushed apart. There, too, they’ve lengthy been handled as unlawful migrants originating from Bangladesh, with contested or denied citizenship. This background solely reinforces the necessity for Indian courts to proceed on clear authorized classes, not slogans or political labels. In opposition to this backdrop, the judiciary’s intervention has been firmly inside constitutional bounds and directed in direction of defending the nation’s integrity whereas upholding primary human dignity,” it mentioned.Restating the authorized and factual place, the signatories emphasised that the Rohingya in India haven’t arrived by any formal refugee-protection framework, because the nation just isn’t a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Conference or its 1967 Protocol.“Rohingya haven’t come to India as refugees beneath Indian legislation. They haven’t been admitted by any statutory refugee-protection framework. Their entry, generally, is irregular or unlawful, and so they can’t unilaterally convert that place right into a legally acknowledged “refugee” standing merely by assertion. India is neither a signatory to the UN Refugee Conference of 1951 nor its 1967 Protocol,” the assertion mentioned.The assertion additionally raised considerations concerning the illegal acquisition of Aadhaar, ration playing cards and different welfare-related paperwork by those that entered the nation with out authorization.The SC’s feedback got here in opposition to the backdrop of long-standing considerations over unlawful immigration in India’s northeastern and jap states, a difficulty the courtroom has repeatedly flagged for practically 20 years. This got here after the apex courtroom warned that unchecked inflow from Bangladesh had subjected Assam to “exterior aggression and inside disturbance,” inserting heavy social, demographic and administrative pressure on the area. Since then, questions across the authorized standing, documentation and safety implications of cross-border migration have continued to form each public debate and judicial scrutiny.