The Supreme Court will examine the living conditions of the detention centres of Assam as the Court has been approached origination alleging the detention centres as unlivable.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi and Justices L Nageswara Rao and Sanjiv Khanna in response to a plea filed by activist Harsh Mander said that it will examine the conditions in detention centres and the issue of long period of detention of the foreigners.
Mandar in his PIL sought a statement whether those who have been declared as foreigners and held in detention centres pending their repatriation would be treated as refugees.
Mander also pleaded that detention of a foreigner should be the last resort and there should be clear prospects for their release.
After going through the data submitted by the State, the Bench remarked that only 52,000 have been declared foreigners, although the NRC has identified that there are 40 lakh illegal immigrants.
While only 166 foreigners have been deported, the Solicitor General informed the court that not all the 40 lakh people, who were left out of Assam NRC, were illegal immigrants.
