Supreme Court Halts Deportation of Family Amid Citizenship Claims

On Friday, the Supreme Court helped a family of six by telling the authorities not to send them back to Pakistan until they check their citizenship claims. The court, made up of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh, didn’t give a specific time frame but asked the officials to verify the family’s identity documents, like their passports and Aadhaar cards. This family, who lives in Kashmir and has sons working in Bengaluru, faced deportation to Pakistan after a terrible terror attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 people.

The government said the family had overstayed their visa, but Ahmed Tarek Butt and his family said they had valid documents and were unfairly taken to the Wagah border for deportation. The court said that until a proper decision is made, the authorities should not force them to leave India.

During the hearing, Justice Kant questioned how the father of the family came to India. The family lawyer, Nanda Kishore, explained that he arrived in 1987 on a valid visa and gave up his Pakistani passport at the border. The government lawyer, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, suggested that the family should first talk to the authorities to get their claims checked. He promised the court that they would not take any harsh actions against the family until a decision is made.

The Indian government had recently issued a notice to Pakistani nationals asking them to leave after the Pahalgam attack. In just a week, 911 Pakistani nationals left India through the Attari-Wagah border.