Can't evacuate Indians from overseas Centre tells HC

Chennai, Apr 16 (PTI) The Centre has informed the Madras
High Court that it was not possible for it to organise any
evacuation of Indian nationals from any foreign country in
the current COVID-19 lockdown situation.
The submission was made in a counter to a PIL seeking
steps to bring about 350 Indians stranded in Malaysia after
visiting the country on tourist visa.
A Special Bench of Justice R Subbiah and Justice R
Pongiappan, before which the PIL came up for hearing,
adjourned the matter after two weeks after going through the
counter.
In the counter, filed by Additional Solicitor General G.
Rajagopalan on behalf of the Union Home Ministry, the
government submitted that after the global outbreak of COVID-
19 it has proactively taken steps to ensure safety and well-
being of Indian nationals abroad as well as people in the
country.
It said all types of passenger movements through
designated immigration land checkposts on the country's
borders with Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar border have been
suspended so as all scheduled international commercial
passenger flights.
Some of the countries have reported a very large number
of cases including deaths, putting passengers from these
countries particularly at higher risk of infection.
Travel back of such passengers to different regions of
India poses a grave risk to the country having a population of
over 1.3 billion.
"In such a lockdown situation, it is not possible for
the government of India to organise any evacuation of Indian
nationals from any country," the counter said.
Petitioner Gunasekar, an advocate, submitted that while
the Malaysian government flew back all its nationals stranded
in India by arranging a special flight, the centre was not
taking any steps to bring its nationals in Malaysia.
According to him, his client Mullainathan had telephoned
him from Malaysia on April 4 and informed that he visited
Malaysia on a tourist visa and that now he was unable to come
back due to the lockdown.
Besides his client and his family, there were over 350
Indians stranded in Malaysia due to the cancellation of the
flight operations following the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Supreme Court had on Monday observed that Indian
citizens stranded in various countries due to the COVID-19
pandemic should "stay where they are" after the Centre said it
would not be feasible to "selectively evacuate" those who want
to return due to various reasons.
The centre's response was to a batch of pleas seeking
evacuation of Indian citizens from different countries,
including United Kingdom and Gulf nations. PTI COR NVG
VS VS

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)