The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Union government to clarify whether authorities are using a “particular language” as a “presumption of the speaker being a foreigner,” The Indian Express reported.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi was hearing a petition alleging that Muslim migrant labourers from West Bengal were being detained on unverified claims of being foreigners who entered India “illegally” from Bangladesh.

The bench asked if citizenship could be decided on the basis of the language a person speaks, Bar and Bench reported. “We would like you to clarify the bias – the use of a language as a presumption of being a foreigner,” Bagchi asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was representing the Union government.

The petition has been filed by the West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board.

The development came amid the Trinamool Congress repeatedly raising concerns about several Bengali-speaking migrant workers being detained in parts of the country on the suspicion of being Bangladeshis.

Since the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, the police in several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.

Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, persons who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.

At the hearing on Friday, advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioner, said that the Calcutta High Court had adjourned a hearing on a petition filed by a woman who was “pushed out” on the suspicion of being a Bangladeshi after it was informed about the pendency of the present plea in the Supreme Court, The Indian Express reported.

The two petitions were different, the Supreme Court bench said, adding that the High Court could go ahead with the hearing.

The woman had been deported only because she speaks Bengali, Bhushan told the Supreme Court.

“They are saying Bengali language is Bangladeshi language,” the newspaper quoted the advocate as saying. “And therefore, those speaking Bengali language must be Bangladeshi.”

Bhushan also claimed that there had to be “some agreement” with the Bangladesh government, adding that such deportations otherwise violated international law. “You can’t push anyone to another country without that country agreeing to accept them,” he added.

Noting that there were several “factual questions” involved in the matter, the bench said that it would ask the High Court to take a call.

Bagchi also said that there was a distinction between a person found crossing the international border “because at the stage of the international border, the country’s security forces have the right of repulsion”, The Indian Express reported.

However, once the person, foreigner or otherwise, was within Indian land, then there had to be some procedure, the judge said, adding that the bench would call upon Mehta to explain.

Solicitor General Mehta asked why organisations were moving the court and not persons affected by such deportations.

“But India is not the world’s capital for illegal immigrants,” The Indian Express quoted him as saying. “There is a system in place. They won’t come because the moment they come, they will have to explain their legal presence in India.”

However, Kant noted that the issue being raised in the present petition pertained to allegations that persons who were speaking Bengali were being detained on the suspicion of being Bangladeshi.

Mehta also claimed that there were organisations and governments that were “thriving on illegal immigrants”. He added that the Union government was trying to ensure that “these immigrants don’t eat away our resources which we can divert to our own citizens”.

The solicitor general urged the Supreme Court to tag the matter along with the petition on the question of the Rohingya community, The Indian Express reported.

The bench listed the matter for hearing on September 11 and asked Mehta to file a reply to the petition and the one in the Rohingya case.

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