Calcutta High Court on Friday struck down Centre’s decision to deport two women and their families from Birbhum, West Bengal, to Bangladesh.The court said the deportation was illegal and ordered that all six people, including three children, be brought back to India within a month. The court also dismissed the Centre’s request for a temporary stay on the order.Petitions were filed by family members of Sonali Bibi and Sweety Bibi, both from Paikar in Murarai, Birbhum. The women said their husbands and children had been living and working in Delhi for over 20 years as daily wage earners. On June 18, Delhi Police detained them on suspicion of being Bangladeshi nationals. Nine days later, on June 27, they were deported across the border. Reports said they were later arrested by the Bangladesh police. Sonali’s family told the court that she was nine months pregnant when deported, raising fears about her newborn’s citizenship if the child was born in Bangladesh. Lawyers for the families argued that the deportation was carried out despite them showing proper documents, including land papers, voter ID cards of their parents and grandparents, and birth certificates of their children issued by government hospitals. The Centre, in its affidavit, said the plea was not valid before the Calcutta High Court since petitions had already been filed in the Delhi High Court. It also argued that Delhi Police acted under instructions from the ministry of home affairs, which had issued a memo in May 2025 detailing the process for deporting Bangladeshi or Myanmar nationals. After the judgment, Trinamool Congress MP Samirul Islam said the court’s order exposed the BJP’s attempt to brand poor Bengali families as illegal immigrants wrongly. Calling it a “victory for Bengal,” he said the deportation was part of an anti-Bengali, anti-poor agenda.
