New Delhi: In response to UK-based anthropologist Filippo Osella challenging his “arbitrary” deportation in March this year, the Union government on Wednesday, October 12 told the Delhi high court that there was “sufficient material to blacklist and take action” against him.
The counsel, representing the Union government, said, “He [the petitioner, Osella] was in the highest category of blacklisting. There was a lot of material because of which he had to be deported. There is more to it than meets the eyes.”
He also urged the court to peruse the relevant file as it was not possible to “disclose everything in an affidavit”.
Osella is the professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the Department of Anthropology, School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex in the UK. He has written extensively on Kerala for the last 30 years.
On March 23, he was scheduled to attend a conference in Thiruvananthapuram. However, he was deported upon arrival at the airport without being given any explicit reason.
He was touted as the face of the conference on “emerging themes connected to the livelihood and lifeworld of Kerala coastal communities”.
In his plea, the anthropologist has said that his deportation is “unconstitutional and arbitrary” because no reasons were given to him till date, despite making various representations. He has also sought directions to call for the records which led to his deportation.
“Reasons were disturbingly absent in this high-handed and arbitrary conduct of the immigration authorities at the Thiruvananthapuram airport. By 4:30 am, the professor was literally marched back and bundled into the same aircraft, in which he had arrived and was unjustly deported – much like a hardened criminal,” the petition has said.
The plea further said that during his previous visits, Osella had never faced any issue at immigration, and was never involved in any unlawful activities in his entire life.
“The petitioner’s request for his blood pressure medications from his luggage was also not allowed, creating extreme anxiety, hypertension and panic,” added the plea, which also informed the incident invited “a huge backlash in the national and international press as well as in the wide cross section of the academic community”.
The Delhi high court had in August sought the Union government’s stand on Osella’s plea in this matter.
Also read: Delhi HC Seeks Centre’s Stand on Anthropologist Filippo Osella’s Plea Challenging Deportation
According to LiveLaw, the respondents in the plea are the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs, Bureau of Immigration and the Foreigner Regional Registration Offices (FRRO), Trivandram.
During the hearing on Wednesday, Justice Yashwant Varma asked the Union government to first file its written response in the matter before any privileged document is considered by the court.
“File an affidavit. It would be unfair to the petitioner that we independently peruse something which is produced in a sealed cover and they don’t get to know what it is. If that affidavit lays the foundation for us to see some documents which are privileged… then we will consider looking into it,” said the judge, granting four weeks’ time to the Union government to file the response.
The matter would be next heard on February 23.
In a similar incident, award-winning architect and scholar Lindsay Bremner was deported in July this year from Chennai airport with the authorities citing only “immigration issues” as the reason. She was scheduled to visit IIT Madras for academic purposes.
(With PTI inputs)