Updated: 22th march,2025

Who are Rohingya Refugees?

The Rohingya are an ethnic, predominantly Muslim minority group from Rakhine State in Myanmar. They have faced persecution and discrimination for decades, with the Myanmar government denying them citizenship under the 1982 Citizenship Law, effectively rendering them stateless. Most of the 40,000 Rohingya who reside in slums and detention camps in India, including Jammu, Hyderabad, Nuh, and Delhi, lack proper documentation. In accordance with Indian legislation, Rohingyas are not considered refugees in India but rather illegal immigrants. Indian law states that undocumented immigrants are not considered refugees. India does not adhere to the United Nations concept of non-refoulement and hindrance to removal because it is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. If they don’t fit the host nation’s legal definition of a legitimate refugee, illegal immigrants aren’t allowed to be expelled.

Court’s View:

Today, the Supreme Court of India scheduled a hearing on a number of petitions and public interest lawsuits concerning the deportation and living conditions of Rohingya refugees on May 8. The ruling came from a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who represented petitioners in one of the petitions, argued during the hearing that the Myanmar government had declared Rohingya refugees to be stateless people after they had been the victims of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Myanmar. But they want to be sent “in shackles” back to the nation that won’t acknowledge them as citizens.

He requested permission to submit a second affidavit and told the court that significant changes had occurred since the case’s last hearing. The counsel then cited an order dated May 11, 2018, issued by the Court in the current case, to emphasize that the Committee had submitted a report after the Court had instructed it to look into the living conditions of Rohingya refugees. He asked the court to order a legal services authority, or any other body, to look into the Rohingya refugees’ current living conditions because they have gotten worse.

However, the bench decided not to issue an order to that effect at this time. When a respondent’s lawyer said that there are roughly 18–19 cases on the matter overall, with 11–12 of those cases being listed before the bench today, Justice Kant stated that the Court would tag them all together. By postponing the case until May 8, the bench allowed each petitioner to submit any further affidavits and supporting documentation that would be needed for a fair and efficient resolution of the case.

A plea to admit Rohingya refugee children to Delhi schools was recently dismissed by the Supreme Court, which noted that the children should first approach the relevant government institutions. The youngsters will have the right to petition the Delhi High Court if they were later refused admission, the Court stated. The Court stated that all children should get an education free from discrimination, but that first the Rohingya families’ residency status needed to be determined. This was in response to another Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that sought government subsidies and school admissions for Rohingya refugees. However, this appeal was later dismissed in light of a similar order, in which the court stated that it preferred that Rohingya children apply for admission to schools first.