Rights rapporteur of UN not heard by Supreme Court in Rohingya case

The Jammu and Kashmir government on Friday objected to the Supreme Court allowing intervention of UN human rights rapporteur in the Rohingya case, insisting that courts can only implement domestic law and cannot force the government to accept international conventions that have not been signed for a reason. After hearing this argument, a three-judge bench led by CJI SA Bobde refused to hear for now the rapporteur, represented in court by senior advocate CU Singh. It also did not give a ruling on the issue.

“Municipal courts only apply domestic law. To get the government to enforce through courts treaties it has not signed for good reasons is elbowing the government,” said Harish Salve, appearing for the Union Territory of JK. He objected to arguments of activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan to prevail upon the government not to recognise the military regime in Myanmar. “A municipal court will go by what the executive says to recognise another government. That is primacy law,” he said. “A municipal court will not do anything that will embarrass the executive in international law.”

The bench was hearing an urgent plea to prevent deportation of hundreds of Rohingyas refugees recently rounded up and housed in detention centres in Jammu. The plea seeking a bar on deportation of the refugees argued that the principle of non-rouflement followed globally bar deportation to any country where they face certain death. Bhushan was referring to the ethnic cleansing of Muslim Rohingyas by a Buddhist group in Myanmar. Thousands of Rohingyas fled to India to escape death. The situation in Myanmar has turned worse after the military regime’s take over, Bhushan argued.


Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves also urged the court to consider the fact that former CJI Ranjan Gogoi had asked the government not to take coercive action against the refugees till the court heard a slew of petitions.