The Calcutta High Court on Friday set aside the Centre’s deportation order against two migrant worker families from West Bengal’s Birbhum district who had been pushed into Bangladesh earlier this year, PTI reported.

A division bench of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Ritabrata Kumar Mitra said that “acting in hot haste to deport them” was a clear violation of the law that needed to be set aside, The Indian Express reported.

The court directed that the six persons, including eight-month pregnant Sunali Khatun, be brought back to West Bengal within four weeks.

It also rejected the Centre’s request for a stay.

Since May, thousands of Bengali-speaking migrant workers have been rounded up in states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party and asked to prove that they were Indian citizens – and not undocumented immigrants.

In several cases, workers have been declared foreigners within days and forced into Bangladesh, despite being Indian citizens.

On Friday, the bench observed that the authorities had violated a May 2 memo while deporting the families.

“The question of citizenship should be considered based on further documents and evidence before an appropriate court,” The Indian Express quoted the order as saying.

The court had earlier asked the Centre to file an affidavit explaining the process of deportation and disclose the place from where the families were pushed across the border.

In its affidavit, the Centre had alleged that the detainees are Bangladeshi nationals.

Sunali Khatun’s relatives said that she, her husband Danish Sheikh and their eight-year-old child were among six persons detained from Delhi in June and allegedly forced across the border.

Her father, Bhodu Sheikh, later filed a petition before the High Court, citing concerns about the citizenship of her unborn child.

The other family that was deported was of Sweety Bibi (32) and her two sons, aged six and 16, also from Birbhum.

Both families had been held at KN Katju Marg police station in Delhi before being deported as “Bangladeshi citizens”, The Indian Express reported.

Trinamool Congress MP Samirul Islam welcomed the ruling, calling it “a rebuke to the BJP’s anti-Bengali, anti-poor policy”.

In a social media post, he wrote: “Today the Calcutta High Court tore apart the BJP’s sham – their attempt to brand pregnant Birbhum resident Sunali Khatun and five others (including children) as ‘Bangladeshi nationals’ was exposed as a lie.”

“This is not just my victory; it is Bengal’s victory,” he added.

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