Gauhati HC orders ₹2 lakh compensation after woman deported to Bangladesh

Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court has directed the Assam government to pay ₹2 lakh in interim compensation to the husband of Mumtaz Begum, a Bengali-speaking Muslim woman who was deported to Bangladesh after an Assam foreigners tribunal declared her a foreign national.

The order marks the first known instance of a court imposing a financial cost on the state for sending a person to Bangladesh in violation of prescribed deportation procedures.

A division bench comprising Justices Kalyan Rai Surana and Susmita Phukan Khaund passed the order while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Begum’s husband, Mujammel Hoque, a resident of Juria in Nagaon district, Hindustan Times reported.

The court observed that Begum had been expelled from India without her husband or any adult member of her family being informed. Considering the circumstances, the bench ordered the state government to provide Hoque ₹2 lakh as an interim measure.

The amount is to be paid within 60 days, while the court clarified that Hoque would be free to seek additional compensation or other relief before a civil court.

The bench also made the Ministry of External Affairs a party to the proceedings and said it would ask the ministry to make efforts to locate Begum in Bangladesh and facilitate her return to India.

Hoque approached the high court in June after he was unable to find his wife at the detention centre in Matia, Goalpara district, where people declared foreigners by Assam’s foreigners tribunals are held.

Foreigners tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies specific to Assam that determine the citizenship status of people identified as suspected foreigners by the border police or categorised as doubtful voters, commonly known as D-voters, in electoral rolls.

The Nagaon foreigners tribunal had declared Begum a foreign national in 2019. Begum, who maintains that she was born in Rupahihat in Nagaon district in December 1982, had submitted documents showing that her grandfather’s name appeared in voter lists dating back to before 1971, the cut-off year for citizenship in Assam.

She challenged the tribunal's decision before the High Court. In April this year, the high court set aside the tribunal's order and remanded the case for fresh consideration.

However, shortly after Begum appeared before the tribunal on May 30, police took her into custody. She was kept at Juria police station overnight before being shifted to the Matia detention centre the following day.

It was only during the hearing of the habeas corpus petition in late June that the authorities disclosed that Begum had been handed over to the Border Security Force and deported to Bangladesh around midnight on June 14 through an international border point in Sribhumi district.

The high court noted that neither Begum nor her family had been informed about the tribunal's May 30 order. It found that failing to provide Begum or her family with a copy of the order, as well as not informing them about her deportation, amounted to procedural lapses by the state machinery and police.

The bench also directed the Assam Home Department to initiate an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the entire episode.

The court observed that the state machinery had acted in a manner that prevented Begum from exercising her legal right to approach the high court and challenge the May 30 order. It noted that Hoque became aware of her deportation only after the habeas corpus petition was filed.

In view of the proceedings, the bench directed district superintendents of police to ensure that people declared foreign nationals are informed of foreigners tribunal orders before they are taken into custody. It also directed that an adult family member be informed before such a person is removed from the district.

The matter is scheduled to come up for further hearing on September 24.

In July, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told the state Assembly that 1,679 illegal Bangladeshi nationals had been repatriated from Assam over the preceding two years. He also said the state's electoral rolls contained 91,385 D-voters, whose citizenship status has been marked as doubtful.