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A Supreme Court bench of Justices Khanwilkar and AS Oka today stayed operation of a Manipur High Court Judgment challenged by Centre which had granted passage to seven Myanmar refugees to New Delhi if it has not already been acted upon by concerned authorities.

The bench directed a petitioner, Nandita Haskar who had sought directions from High Court for safe passage of seven Myanmarese illegal immigrants to Delhi, to take also responsibility for them as they have become untraceable. Haskar had moved the Manipur High Court to allow the Myanmarese citizens to travel to New Delhi to seek protection for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC).

The central government had challenged the order of the Manipur High Court on the ground that the order passed by the High Court had considered the non-refoulement principle to which India is not a signatory under international obligations. 

When the matter came up for hearing today Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta informed the bench that the people who entered the country on High Court’s order are now untraceable and since the petitioner had given undertaking before the Manipur High Court she should find out and tell where these seven persons are.
The SG further argued that these are essentially Executive functions and that the High Court has considered non-refoulement principle to which India is not a signatory.

The court on hearing the submissions made by SG issued notice in the matter and furthermore stayed the operation of the judgment of the High Court if it has already not been acted on by the concerned authority.

The Manipur High Court had in 2021 ordered safe passage to the seven Myanmar nationals, stranded at a border town in Manipur, to travel to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in New Delhi. The judgment notes that the immigrants escaped the coup in Myanmar and fled to India to avoid the violence.
The judgment further notes that they “sought the help of the petitioner as they feared that they would be sent back to Myanmar by the Assam Rifles, as they had come without proper travel documents.”

The court further held that the seven Myanmarese individuals in question are not ‘migrants’, as normally understood, but are ‘asylum seekers’.The court noted that these seven individuals did not enter the country with the clear-cut and deliberate intention of breaking and violating its domestic laws. The judgment further records that petitioner/party-in-person will make the required arrangements for purchase of their air-tickets and would also arrange for their stay at New Delhi, pending consideration of their claims for refugee status by UNHCR..

Case title: Union of India Vs Nandita Haskar