Responsibility of the State to rehabilitate the affected persons: Karnataka HC on eviction of "Bangladeshi" migrant workers

The Karnataka High Court today directed the state government to come up with a comprehensive scheme to rehabilitate migrant workers who were forcefully evicted from their homes in Bangalore earlier this year.The state government has been given a period of one month to do so..The Court also ordered the state to provide either monetary assistance or temporary accommodation to such persons as interim relief. .A Division Bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Hemant Chandangoudar passed the above directions while dealing with a petition challenging the recent forceful eviction of thousands of migrant workers near Marathahalli in Bangalore. In this regard, the Court observed that it the is responsibility of the State to rehabilitate the affected persons.."The state will have to rehabilitate them…the state will have to ascertain the whereabouts of the affected persons and...rehabilitate them."Karnataka High Court.Additionally, the High Court noted that nothing had been placed on record to show that these migrant workers were “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants”. .Before going ahead with the eviction drive, the police had neither visited the place nor conducted an enquiry in the matter, the High Court order noted. The Court further observed that no wing of the state government had made any enquiry before arriving at the conclusion that the residents were illegal immigrants from Bangladesh..In this regard, the High Court has directed the state to come up with a “comphrehensive scheme” for the all the persons who are affected and left homeless after the eviction drive was conducted..Further the Court state that the scheme shall include a specific provision that deals with “grant of immediate relief to the affected persons”..The state was further directed to place on record how it would identify the affected persons so that relief can be provided to such persons, within a period of one month..In this regard, the Court further urged counsel for the petitioner, Advocate Maitreyi Krishnan, to assist the affected persons in filing representations with the Deputy Collector of the District so that the interim benefits can be made available to them..This apart, as a temporary arrangement, the High Court further instructed the state to provide monetary assistance or temporary accommodation to those evicted persons within a period of two weeks..In a previous order passed by the Karnataka High Court on February 5, the High Court reportedly remarked,"By looking at the face of a person, can one be identified as being a Bangladeshi national?" .The Court specifically asked the police to produce the evidence based on which a conclusion was drawn that "illegal Bangladeshi immigrants have been provided with shelter in the sheds put up on the subject land.".In January, the Karnataka High Court had passed an interim stay on the demolition drive purportedly conducted by civic body BBMP and the Bengaluru Police..The matter will be taken up next on February 26.