- The Supreme Court has agreed to examine on the question of whether the illegal immigrants can even be considered for refugee status.
- This hearing came on a petition of Rohingyas who had moved the Supreme Court against the Centre’s proposed plan to deport Rohingyas to the land of their origin which is Myanmar.
- Rohingya is an ethnic group largely comprising Muslims who predominantly live in the Western Myanmar province of Rakhine.They speak a dialect of Bengali as opposed to the commonly spoken Burmese language in Myanmar.
- They have not been granted full citizenship by Myanmar.They are classified as resident foreigners or associate citizens.
- Lakhs of Rohingyas have been displaced with majority of them seeking refuge in Bangladesh and India.In India,there are nearly 40,000 Rohingya refugees.
- Further,India does not have a specific law regarding refugees.India has also not been a signatory of the 1951 UN Convention or the 1967 Protocol – both relating to the Status of Refugees and included in the UNHCR statute.
- According to the UNHCR,a refugee is a person living in another country following persecution in his own on the grounds of “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”
