Deportation of Bangladeshi prisoners from India : issues and challenges

This article draws on Mehta’s experience of working with Bangladeshi women as a student social worker in a prison for female under trials in Mumbai in 2008-09, then as a doctoral researcher in two prisons in Kolkata in 2010-11 and engagement with various stakeholders on the issue over the last decade to highlight the ways in which lives are impacted when specific procedures are not followed for repatriating an individual back to their country of origin or when the identification of country of origin itself is a contentious issue. In addition, through the analysis of about 18 judgments between 2014-19, from the states of West Bengal, Tripura, Maharashtra and Karnataka, this paper seeks to showcase the ways in which deportation orders are issued by the judiciary and the ways in which it may be violative of the human rights of the deportees.