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Delhi High Court rejects request to allow Rohingya children in schools, refers matter to the government
Local authorities are excluding Rohingya children because they do not have the Aadhaar identification card, the biometric identification system reserved for Indian citizens, this according to NGO that filed the complaint. The Delhi High Court refused to hear the case, arguing that it is a policy matter for the Home Affairs Ministry.
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New Delhi (AsiaNews) – The Delhi High Court has refused to hear a request to allow Rohingya children from Myanmar to enrol in local schools. As refugees, they do not have an Aadhaar card, the biometric identification system reserved for Indian citizens.
Yesterday, the two-member bench rejected the application, saying that the matter falls within the jurisdiction of the central government since it pertained to “international issues” with national security implications, so the Home Affairs Ministry should deal with it.
"There are a lot of issues involved," the bench said, asking that the request be examined as quickly as possible.
The request was filed by Social Jurist, an NGO, claiming that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is refusing to allow 17 Rohingya children living in the Khajoori Chowk area to enrol in school because they do not have the 12-digit Aadhaar identification code.
In India, registration with the system is voluntary, and the Supreme Court last year ruled that the government cannot deny a service if someone does not have this document.
According to Ashok Agarwal, a lawyer who represents Social Jurist, the right of Rohingya children to study in local schools is guaranteed by various articles in the Indian Constitution (in which "children" are mentioned in a generic sense, not just Indian children, the lawyer argues) and by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009.
For the High Court, however, the “Rohingyas were foreigners” who have not been “officially and legally granted entry into India.”
India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not have a national refugee protection framework, but allows the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to operate on its territory.
The Rohingya are a mostly Muslim minority group in Myanmar, where a civil war has been raging for over three years.
Last July, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on India to end arbitrary detention and deportation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, where they risk "serious human rights violations".
According to a 2019 estimate, more than 40,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to India, about 22,000 registered with the UNHCR.
Civil society groups have complained that since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power, discrimination and calls for their expulsion have increased.
According to the Delhi High Court, allowing Rohingya children to enrol in local school would be tantamount to granting foreign nationals access to the national education system, a matter that cannot be authorised by the court.
“This is a policy domain,” the justices explained. “Let the policy decision be taken by the government. It is not for us to take a call” since it touches citizenship.
“We are not taking the responsibility of the entire (world). Then you will say open schools in Africa also. Let us not get carried away," the court added, citing a law of the State of Assam that provides for the expulsion of foreigners through special courts.
“And here you are facilitating them? Tomorrow you will have a situation where they will have to be expelled. We can't get into this. Let the government take a call on this,” the Court reiterated.
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