Citizenship for SL refugees can be decided within frame of law, Centre tells HC

The petitioner M Subramaniam, Kottapattu Sri Lankan Refugee camp, Tiruchy district, sought citizenship to Sri Lankan repatriates and their family members, who repatriated into India after the intermittent settlement in tea estates of hill areas in Sri Lanka under the Indian Citizenship Act. They are descendants of indentured labour, who went to settle down in the tea estates of Sri Lanka during the colonial years. Further, the petitioner stated that ‘we are all Tamil speaking people. I and others faces severe discrimination at the hands of the Lankan government after it gained independence in 1948. We are genealogic Indians and our native places are in Tamil Nadu. We have blood relatives only here because their forefathers had gone to Sri Lanka to work as labour. Several people suffered conditions of statelessness and escaped from Sri Lanka during 1983 to 85 to save lives and limbs.’ 

A division bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice M Duraiswamy, after hearing, directed the Tamil Nadu government to send a fresh notice to the respondents as they did not receive it earlier. The case was then adjourned to three weeks.