India not dharamshala, struggling with 140 cr: SC dismisses Lankan convict’s plea to stay back

Noting that India was struggling with its own population of 140 crore, the Supreme Court on Monday said the country was not a ‘dharamshala’ or a public shelter to accommodate foreign nationals from across the world.

“What’s your right to settle here? Go to some other country,” a Bench led by Justice Dipankar Datta told Subaskaran — a Sri Lankan national of Tamil origin — who wanted to stay back in India after completing his seven-year jail term in an Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act case.

“Is India (meant) to host refugees from all over the world? We are struggling with 140 crore people… This is not a ‘dharamshala’ that we can entertain foreign nationals from all over,” said the Bench that also included Justice K Vinod Chandran.

The Bench made these comments while hearing Subaskaran’s petition challenging a Madras High Court order directing him to leave India after his seven-year jail term in a UAPA case was over.

His counsel said Subaskaran faced threats of arrest and torture in Sri Lanka as he was a former member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and that his wife and children were settled in India.

The Bench said the fundamental right to settle in India was available only to its citizens and that there was no violation of his rights under Article 21 (protection of life and liberty) of the Constitution.

Arrested in 2015 on allegations of conspiring to revive the LTTE — which aimed to set up an independent Tamil nation in north-eastern part of Sri Lanka — Subaskaran was convicted by a trial court in Ramanathapuram in 2018 under various provisions of the UAPA, the Passport Act, the Foreigners Act, the Poisons Act, and the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and awarded a 10-year prison term.

However, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in 2022 reduced his sentence to seven years and ordered him to leave India without delay on his release. He could remain in a refugee camp until then, the HC had said.

The Madras High Court had rejected his wife’s plea seeking to prevent his deportation, following which he moved the Supreme Court.

On May 16, the Supreme Court had refused to stay the deportation of Rohingyas found to be living in India illegally and pulled up the petitioners for claiming that 43 of them, including women and children, were dropped in the Andaman Sea for deportation to Myanmar.

“When the country is passing through a difficult time, you come up with such fanciful ideas… Where is the material substantiating the allegations?” a Bench, led by Justice Surya Kant, had told senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, who represented the petitioners.

On May 8, it had said if Rohingyas living in India were found to be foreigners under Indian laws, they would have to be deported.