After Supreme Court nudge, Centre says pregnant woman, son deported to Bangladesh will be brought back to India

New Delhi:  The Central government told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that a pregnant woman and her eight-year-old son—who were deported earlier this year on the suspicion that they were Bangladeshi nationals—will be brought back to India. The update was given in the case Union of India v. Bhodu Sheikh. The Court had earlier urged the Centre to examine whether the two could be allowed to return on humanitarian grounds. The woman and her child were detained in Delhi in June and sent to Bangladesh, where authorities arrested them for allegedly entering the country illegally. A Bangladeshi court reportedly granted them bail on Monday.

During Wednesday’s proceedings, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi again asked whether the Centre was willing to facilitate their return purely on humanitarian considerations. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the Bench that the woman, Sonali, and her son, Sabir, would indeed be brought back. “She is Bangladeshi, but her Indian address is shown as Birbhum district in West Bengal,” the SG noted. Justice Bagchi observed that her claim to Indian citizenship could be resolved by verifying her lineage. “If she can establish that Bhodu Sheikh is her biological father, she would be entitled to Indian citizenship, and her son would derive it through her,” he remarked. Sonali Khatun, who hails from Paikar in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, had been detained in Delhi earlier this year along with her husband and their son over doubts regarding their nationality. She was pregnant at the time and is now reportedly in her ninth month. Roughly two days after they were picked up, the family was taken to the Indo-Bangladesh border and handed over to Bangladeshi authorities, acting on instructions from agencies that deal with suspected foreign nationals.

Her father later approached the Calcutta High Court, asserting that Sonali, her husband, and their child are Indian citizens with deep ties to Birbhum. He supported the plea with land documents, older family IDs, and the child’s birth certificate. On September 26, the High Court held that the deportation was unlawful because required procedures—such as the Union government’s mandatory 30-day verification—were not followed. It struck down the deportation order and directed the Centre to bring back six people, including Sonali and her family, within four weeks. The Centre has appealed the ruling before the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to take up the matter again on December 10.