Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: August 2, 2022 at 19:58 IST
The Secretary of the Social Justice Department and the State Authorities were given a two-month deadline by the Kerala High Court on Monday to set up temporary detention centers for foreign citizens who lack valid travel documents.
Further clarifying, Justice Ziyad Rahman A. A. stated that the setting up of the detention facilities must be done in conformity with the stipulations provided by the Central Government.
The Nigerian citizen who filed the plea for the court was still imprisoned despite being granted bail because there was no foreigner detention centre in place. In order to direct the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer to specify any prison detention centre other than Central Prison, the petitioner had thus approached the court.
The Central Government’s counsel noted that several foreign nationals, including two children, are currently accomodated in prison among other ordinary prisoners as they wait for accommodations. They must be accommodated in the detention centre as soon as possible in accordance with the norms, but as children are also counted among the foreigners, this causes grave prejudice.
In the previous hearing, the Senior Public Prosecutor submitted before the Court that the State had already identified a different building with additional facilities to accommodate a greater number of inmates and that work was ongoing to set up the above said facility in the new building.
The Court has therefore directed the State Authorities to set up the detention center in accordance with the provided stipulations by the Central Government within 2 months.
After a month, the issue will be taken up so that the Court can get the latest updates.