PANAJI
The Supreme Court of India has posted for hearing two petitions seeking the repatriation of Indians stranded abroad, after four weeks whilst refusing to grant any interim relief after the Government of India claimed that it was not possible to have them repatriated.
Tens of thousands of Indians including seafarers, students and those working abroad have been stranded, while the Indian government has refused to repatriate them saying it was not possible to do so.
The three-member Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde, and Justices LN Rao and M Shantanagoudar, while hearing two separate public interest litigations (PILs) instead asked those stranded abroad to ‘stay where you are.’
It said it is impossible to fly back the expatriates stranded in various parts of the world due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
It will be ensured that countries with expatriates have access to facilities including medical services. Hope the government will intervene in it. Flying them back to their places is practically a wrong thing, the bench said.
The Centre had banned travelling seeing the risk of spreading the disease from those coming from abroad.
One of the petitions was by migration lawyers Pravasi Legal, who urged the government to allow repatriation flights.
In their submission to the court, they said there are nine million Indian expats in the Gulf, many of whom are "struggling to meet even their basic needs in a dire jobless situation arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic".
Countries across the world especially from Europe are repatriating their citizens back home with special flights being arranged to take the people especially tourists back home. Goa airport has handled more than 20 such flights with more than 3,000 tourists having been evacuated to countries across the world including UK, Russia, Turkey, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Germany, Kazakhstan and others.
According to estimates there are around 7,000 to 8,000 seafarers from Goa eager to return home especially after the cruise tourism industry on which many are employed has ground to a halt. The seafarers have no place to live and many are stranded on the ship. Despite the cruise companies willing to organise charter flights, the Indian government is yet to relent.
Besides seafarers and students also stranded abroad are those who were on business trips, vacationing and fishermen.
