Gauhati HC orders Rs 2 lakh compensation after Bengali Muslim woman deported to Bangladesh without tribunal order

Millat Times Desk

08 September 2026 (Publish: 06:21 PM IST)

0

The Gauhati High Court has directed the Assam government to pay Rs 2 lakh compensation to the son of a Bengali-origin Muslim woman who was deported to Bangladesh, saying authorities failed to follow due process before removing her from India, Scroll reported.

Jahanara Begum was declared a foreigner by a foreigners tribunal in 2019 and was deported to Bangladesh in June this year.

The court passed the order after her son challenged the manner in which she was detained and deported. It found that neither Begum nor any adult member of her family had been given a copy of the tribunal’s order before her deportation.

The court said this deprived her of an opportunity to challenge the decision before the High Court.

Begum had earlier challenged the tribunal’s 2019 order. In April, the High Court set aside that decision after finding that the tribunal had failed to consider the evidence of three of the four witnesses examined in the case. The matter was sent back to the tribunal for a fresh decision.

Begum appeared before the tribunal on May 29 and sought an adjournment, but her request was rejected. She was subsequently taken into custody by the Border Police.

Her family initially did not know where she had been taken. Her son later learnt that she was being held at a detention centre and obtained a certified copy of the tribunal’s fresh opinion on June 5.

According to the Border Security Force, the Border Police handed Begum over to it on June 13. She was deported to Bangladesh during the intervening night of June 13 and 14.

The High Court’s order follows a similar ruling in the case of another woman, Mumtaz Begum, who was also deported to Bangladesh. The court directed the Assam government to pay her Rs 2 lakh in compensation.

The two cases are the first instances in which the High Court has imposed costs on the state over the deportation of individuals in violation of prescribed procedures, according to the report.

Foreigners tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies in Assam that determine whether a person is an Indian citizen or a foreign national, primarily on the basis of documentary evidence.

The cases come amid continuing scrutiny of Assam’s citizenship-determination process and the treatment of people declared foreigners by the tribunals.