The Supreme Court on Wednesday slammed the Assam government for keeping foreign nationals in detention centres without any plan, ANI reported. The apex court told the state government that “you can’t put a person in a detention centre and say you’ll decide later what’s to be done about them”. It also said that planning should have been done in advance.
The apex court also asked the state government to give a timeline by when those people who have been put in detention centres can be united with their families. The court asked the government to inform it by when necessary facilities like gas and medical facilities can be provided in detention centres, the report said.
“You are detaining people against their wish, you must provide them certain basic facilities,” the SC told the Assam government.
Last month, the Supreme Court had expressed its displeasure over the separation of foreign nationals who were kept in a detention centre from their family members. It had asked the Assam government to deal with the matter on an urgent basis so that families are not broken up.
A bench of justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta told the government they “cannot separate them from their families like this”. The bench had also asked the government to provide cylinders and other facilities at the detention centre.
“We expect state government to act with some degree of promptitude in this regard as it relates to Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty) of the Constitution,” the court had said.
Earlier in August, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that around 1,200 people including children and women have been sent to detention camps. Over four million people did not find a mention in the complete NRC draft that was released this year on July 30.
