DEPRIVED OF LIFE:Rohingya asylum seekers and the limits of constitutional protections in India

Abstract

ABSTRACT India’s courts have proven cautious or ineffectual in protecting refugees and asylum seekers in India against refoulement. This article examines the courts’ approaches to the prospective removal of persons at risk of harm if removed from India and identifies a contradiction between the breadth of India’s constitutional guarantee of “life and liberty” and its courts’ narrow and inconsistent approach to questions of refoulement. This article argues that the right to non-refoulement has solely been recognized in India as a “procedural” right (merely requiring that persons at risk of persecution on return to their countries of origin be removed through “proper” procedures), and that this approach is unclear, inconsistent and unsatisfactory.