In a troubling escalation that exposes serious procedural lapses and defiance of judicial authority, the Union government has refused to comply with a binding Calcutta High Court order directing it to bring back six Indian citizens who were wrongfully deported to Bangladesh in June 2025. According to The Times of India, instead of initiating their repatriation within the four-week deadline that ended on October 24, the Union government chose to challenge the order in the Supreme Court on October 22, raising questions about its commitment to due process, constitutional safeguards, and inter-institutional accountability.
This came after the Calcutta High Court had quashed the deportation orders against six persons — including eight-month pregnant Sunali (Sonali) Khatun, her husband Danish Sheikh, and their eight-year-old son Sabir — and directed that all six be brought back to India within four weeks. The deadline expired on October 24, 2025, but the Union government moved the Supreme Court on October 22, just two days before the compliance period ended. Reports indicate that the families of the deported persons were preparing to seek contempt proceedings in the High Court to ensure the order’s enforcement.
Detailed report of the Calcutta High Court order may be read here.
In its plea before the apex court, the Union government has reportedly questioned the jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court to hear the case, arguing that similar matters were already pending before the Delhi High Court. As per TOI, appearing for the Union, Additional Solicitor General Asok Kumar Chakrabarti contended that the petitioner, Bhodu Sheikh — Sunali’s father and resident of Birbhum — had suppressed this fact when filing the habeas corpus petition.
In brief: Calcultta HC order of repatriation
Earlier, in response to the Calcutta High Court’s direction to disclose the details of the deportation process, the Union had maintained that the six detainees were Bangladeshi nationals. However, the affidavit failed to clarify from which location or under whose authority the pushback occurred.
The High Court had taken a stern view of this omission. In its September 26 judgment in Bhodu Sheikh v. Union of India & Ors., a Division Bench comprising Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobroto Kumar Mitra observed that the deportation had been carried out in “hot haste,” in complete disregard of the Ministry of Home Affairs memo dated May 2, 2025, which mandates that no deportation can occur without a 30-day verification process through the home State.
Rejecting the Union’s claim that the deportees had “confessed” to being Bangladeshi nationals, the Court held that such statements made before police officers “without any procedural safeguards” violated Articles 14, 20(3), and 21 of the Constitution. The Bench noted that Sunali’s Aadhaar and PAN cards proved she was born in 2000 — making it factually impossible for her to have “entered India illegally in 1998,” as claimed by authorities.
Emphasising that “suspicion, however grave, cannot replace proof,” the judges declared the deportation and detention orders of June 24 and 26, 2025, unconstitutional. They ruled that the executive’s conduct had “crippled the constitutional grant of fairness and reasonableness” and ordered the Union government, FRRO Delhi, and Delhi Police to repatriate the six persons within four weeks via the Indian High Commission in Dhaka. A plea by the Union government to stay the order was rejected outright, with the Bench observing that “liberty once lost must be swiftly restored.”
Bangladesh Court recognition of the six victims as Indian Citizens
In a parallel and extraordinary development, a Bangladeshi court also ruled in favour of the deported families. On September 30, 2025, the Senior Judicial Magistrate of the Sadar Court in Chapainawabganj declared that all six persons — Sunali Khatun, Danish Sheikh, their minor son Sabir, Sweety Bibi (32), and her two sons aged six and sixteen — were Indian citizens, not Bangladeshis.
Citing their Aadhaar numbers and residential proof from Birbhum, the Magistrate concluded that they were “wrongfully pushed across the border” by Indian authorities. The court directed that the order be transmitted to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka for “appropriate diplomatic action,” effectively placing the onus on New Delhi to initiate their repatriation.
Detailed report may be read here.
Political Reactions: Trinamool Congress accuses Union of defiance
As the Union’s deadline to comply with the High Court’s order expired on October 24, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) accused the Union government of “brazenly defying” a judicial directive and “abandoning” its own citizens.
On October 24, according to the report of The Hindu, TMC alleged that the BJP-led Union government had “flouted the Calcutta High Court’s order with arrogance and indifference.” The party questioned: “Does being in power give BJP the licence to flout a High Court order? To ignore the suffering of women and children? To turn ordinary citizens into bargaining chips in a vindictive, performative game of power?”
According to The Hindu, the statement further said: “First these hapless people were branded Bangladeshis and dumped across the border. Then, after a long legal battle, the court found otherwise and ordered their repatriation. But the Centre has shown no urgency, no humanity, and no basic decency to bring them home.”
TMC leaders Sashi Panja (Minister for Women and Child Development) and Samirul Islam (Rajya Sabha MP and Chairman, Migrant Workers Welfare Board) condemned the Union’s inaction. As per The Hindu, Ms. Panja said that “The deportation was wrong. The Trinamool fought this battle. The central government did not take a single step to bring them back. They continued to label them as Bangladeshis so that they remain in Bangladesh.”
Mr. Islam told The Hindu that the government’s failure to act was “unconstitutional and inhuman,” noting that the Bangladesh court had already recognised the deportees as Indian citizens. He added that the West Bengal government was struggling to establish any communication with the six persons stranded across the border and that Sunali Bibi had not yet delivered her child.
Broader Context: Crackdown on Bengali-Speaking Workers
This controversy unfolds amid reports that thousands of Bengali-speaking migrant workers have been detained, interrogated, or expelled from BJP-ruled states since May 2025, under suspicion of being undocumented immigrants. As Citizens for Justice and Peace has noted, several workers were declared “foreigners” within days of their detention and pushed across the Bangladesh border, often without inquiry or notice to their home States. Human rights groups and lawyers have described these deportations as “undocumented, unconstitutional, and xenophobic.”
The Sunali Khatun deportation case — now at the centre of legal and diplomatic tensions between India and Bangladesh — has come to symbolise the dangers of executive overreach and ethnic profiling, raising critical questions about citizenship, due process, and accountability under India’s constitutional framework.
Detailed reports on such illegal deportations may be read here, here and here.
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