On January 6, 2026, the Gauhati High Court delivered its judgment in Abdul Rejjak v. Union of India & Ors. (W.P.(Crl.) No. 60 of 2025), dismissing a petition arising from the disappearance and claimed deportation of Doyjan Bibi. The case, in which legal aid was provided by Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), did not ask the Court to reopen questions of citizenship or to restrain the State’s power to deport. Instead, it raised a far more limited—and constitutionally unavoidable—question: whether the State could lawfully deport a person without producing any record of how that deportation was carried out.
The petitioners did not dispute that Doyjan Bibi had once been declared a foreigner by a Foreigners Tribunal. What they questioned was the legality of the State’s subsequent conduct. When a person who had been living on bail pursuant to judicial orders suddenly disappears from custody, and the State claims that she has been “sent back” to another country, the most basic requirement of constitutional governance is that the State demonstrate, through documents and procedure, that this removal was lawful. The petition asked the Court to insist on that minimum. Besides, the petition pointed out that it was only economic marginalisation that had precluded Doyjan from appealing the verdict of the Foreigner Tribunal. She had been granted bail post Covid-19 and as per conditions appeared regularly before the police station to record her presence for years.
From Tribunal declaration to sudden disappearance
Doyjan Bibi’s legal trajectory was typical of thousands of cases in Assam. She was declared a foreigner through an ex-parte opinion of the Foreigners Tribunal, Dhubri, in August 2017. That opinion was later interfered with by the Gauhati High Court, which granted her a final opportunity to contest the proceedings. When she failed to appear within the stipulated time, the ex-parte declaration revived. Yet, this declaration did not result in immediate deportation. Like many others, she was released on bail pursuant to directions issued by the Supreme Court and the Gauhati High Court during the COVID-19 period, when constitutional courts ordered the release of long-term detainees to decongest detention centres.
For years thereafter, she remained at liberty. There was no allegation on record that she violated bail conditions or absconded. Her sudden re-arrest on May 24, 2025 therefore marked a decisive rupture. When her husband approached the Court, the State initially stated that she had been lodged in a holding centre in Kokrajhar. Acting on that representation, the Court even permitted the petitioner to meet her and obtain her signature for the purposes of legal proceedings. However, when the petitioner went to the holding centre on June 25, 2025, he was informed that she was no longer there.
The explanation offered by the State was that she had been handed over to the Border Security Force and “sent back to Bangladesh” on May 27, 2025 from an area under the control of an ad hoc BSF battalion. No contemporaneous record of this process was placed before the Court.
What the Petition sought—and what the state did not produce
The petition did not proceed on conjecture. It identified a glaring evidentiary vacuum and asked the Court to address it. If Doyjan Bibi had indeed been deported, the petitioners argued, there ought to exist some documentary trail—proof of nationality verification, a deportation order, a record of handover, or at the very least, an acknowledgment of acceptance by Bangladeshi authorities. In the absence of such records, the only plausible inference was that she may have been illegally pushed across the border.
The State’s response did not deny the absence of documentation. Instead, it relied on affidavits asserting that she had been deported. The judgment records these assertions and accepts them as sufficient. At no stage does the Court direct the State to produce any material to substantiate its claim. The legal question—whether a court can be satisfied about the legality of deportation without seeing a single document—remains unanswered.
The Judgment’s Core Move: Executive assertion as conclusive proof
The fulcrum of the judgment is its treatment of executive power as effectively unreviewable once a person has been declared a foreigner. Drawing extensively on Hans Muller of Nurenburg v. Superintendent, Presidency Jail (1955), the Court reiterates that the power of the State to expel foreigners is “absolute and unfettered.” From this premise, it proceeds to hold that the Court need not inquire into the manner in which that power is exercised.
What the judgment does not confront is that Hans Muller itself imposed limits. The Supreme Court made it clear that an expelled person must leave the country as a free person and cannot be handed over in custody to another State. Nor did Hans Muller suggest that deportation could take place without procedure, documentation, or accountability. By extracting the language of plenary power while discarding the safeguards that accompany it, the judgment converts executive authority into something approaching discretion without record.
Deportation without documents, “pushback” without consequence
One of the most troubling aspects of the judgment is its refusal to meaningfully distinguish between formal deportation and informal pushback. Deportation, in law, is a structured process involving identification, verification, communication with the receiving State, and a documented handover. Pushback, by contrast, is an informal and often violent practice in which individuals are forced across borders without acknowledgment or acceptance.
The petition explicitly raised the spectre of pushback. The judgment, however, treats the State’s use of the word “deportation” as dispositive. Once that label is accepted, the absence of documents is treated as immaterial. This approach effectively collapses the distinction between deportation and pushback, granting judicial cover to practices that would otherwise be legally indefensible.
Bail, judicial protection, and executive override
Another unresolved tension in the judgment concerns the status of judicial bail. Doyjan Bibi had been released pursuant to directions of constitutional courts. Her liberty, fragile though it was, was judicially sanctioned. Yet she was re-arrested and removed without any application for cancellation of bail or judicial oversight.
The Court acknowledges that COVID-era bail orders were temporary in nature, but this observation sidesteps the real issue. The question was not whether deportation was permissible in principle, but whether the executive could override subsisting judicial protection without returning to court. On this, the judgment is silent.
Neither does the Guwahati High Court, a constitutional court, question what it means for an individual not to be able to access all four tiers of justice, available for all. True that the Foreigner Tribunal order of 2017 had not been adequately agitated by Doyjanbi in the High Court, but can this lapse –given the Indian judiciary’s overall approach on delays and condonation thereof—be enough to seize from a woman her very right to agitate citizenship?
From legal adjudication to ideological framing
The judgment goes far beyond what was required to decide the petition. It contains extended references to demographic change, migration narratives, national security concerns, and alleged misinformation about persecution. These observations, while politically charged, do little legal work. Their presence, however, is not neutral. They shift the frame of the case from one about individual liberty and State accountability to one about perceived civilisational threat.
Once that shift occurs, procedural safeguards appear expendable. The petitioner’s wife is no longer a person whose liberty demands justification, but an abstract figure within a larger narrative of migration and security. In such a frame, asking the State for documents begins to look unnecessary, even indulgent.
The Consequence: Petition emptied of content
By dismissing the petition without demanding proof of deportation, the Gauhati High Court sets a troubling precedent. It signals that in cases involving declared foreigners, executive assertion will suffice; records are optional; judicial scrutiny is limited; and families may never know how or where a person was removed.
Habeas corpus petitions have historically existed to prevent precisely this situation—to ensure that the State cannot answer the question “where is this person?” with little more than an affidavit. When courts stop asking for proof, the writ loses its meaning.
Perhaps the most consequential aspect of the judgment is the degree of deference it accords to the executive.
The Court accepts:
- Executive affidavits as conclusive proof
- Absence of documentation as immaterial
- Non-production of records as inconsequential
This transforms habeas corpus from a searching judicial inquiry into a ritualistic exercise. Once the State says “we have deported her,” the Court treats the matter as closed.
Is there an established procedure for deportation?
Deportation in India, though grounded in statutory powers, was largely operationalised through internal administrative mechanisms and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) by state authorities. (See here, here and here) following directions from the Centre.
Typical deportation process is as follows:
- Identification/Completion of Sentence: A foreign national is declared a foreigner or completes a prison term for violating applicable laws.
- Notification: Jail authorities notify relevant police officials (e.g., Superintendent of Police) about the impending release.
- Custody and order:
- If the government decides on deportation, a formal order is issued.
- Upon release, the individual is taken into police custody and served with the deportation order.
- Physical Removal: Arrangements are made for their removal from the country, often under police escort. The serving officer reports the execution of the order back to the government.
- Consular notification (Vienna Convention):
- As per Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Indian authorities must inform the consular representatives of the foreign national’s country about their arrest or detention.
- Indian practice (MEA Office Memorandum No. T.4415/1/91 (CPO/CIR/9)) requires:
- Asking the arrested foreign national if they wish their consulate to be informed.
- Immediately notifying the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
- Providing detailed particulars (name, nationality, passport details, offence, arrest details, location) to Joint Secretaries at MEA and MHA, and state authorities.
- Deportation for minor violations: In cases of brief overstays or delayed registration, prosecution might be withdrawn with court approval, and the individual directly deported under delegated powers of Section 3(2)(c) of the (now-repealed) Foreigners Act. A record is submitted to the MEA.
Detailed report may be read here.
Conclusion: A quiet but profound Constitutional retreat
This judgment will reverberate far beyond one case. It lowers the threshold of accountability in deportation proceedings and normalises undocumented removals. In border regimes, where power is most concentrated and individuals most vulnerable, such a retreat from scrutiny is especially dangerous.
If this reasoning is followed, it means:
- Deportations can occur without paperwork
- Families need never be informed
- Courts need not verify State claims
- Pushbacks acquire judicial cover
- Habeas corpus becomes ineffective precisely where it is most needed
This is not a minor doctrinal shift. It is a structural weakening of constitutional oversight. The Constitution does not cease to operate at the border, nor does it become optional when the person involved is labelled a foreigner. By refusing to insist on legality through proof, the Court has allowed executive power to move beyond effective constitutional control.
That is the enduring, and deeply unsettling, legacy of this decision.
Details of the proceedings of the said case in Gauhati High Court may be read here, here, here and here.
The order of the High Court may be read here:
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