UK academic deported from Kerala in ‘highest’ blacklisting class: Centre to HC

Osella (65) moved the high court seeking records related to his deportation from Thiruvananthapuram airport in March, and quashing it as “arbitrary and illegal”.

New Delhi: Opposing a petition by British anthropologist Filippo Osella against his deportation from Thiruvananthapuram airport in March this year, the Centre on Wednesday informed the Delhi High Court that Osella appears in the “highest category” of blacklisting.

The counsel for the government submitted before the single-judge bench of Justice Yashwant Varma that there is sufficient material to blacklist Osella and deport him to the United Kingdom.

The court granted the Centre four weeks to file its counter-affidavit and listed the matter for hearing next on February 23, 2023.

Osella, 65, a professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Sussex in the UK, had moved the Delhi High Court seeking records related to his deportation from Thiruvananthapuram airport on March 23. He has also urged the court that his deportation be declared arbitrary, unreasonable and illegal.

On the last date of hearing, on August 22, the HC had granted the Centre time to seek instructions on Osella’s petition.

The petition stated that Osella was treated by the Indian authorities as a “terrorist or some kind of hardened criminal” when he was “escorted back and bundled into the same aircraft in which he had arrived”.

It stated: “The petitioner was in complete shock as he had a valid research visa issued by the Government of India. Once the petitioner asked the immigration supervisor and officers as to why he was being deported, the petitioner was refused any explanation. In fact, the immigration officers gave no reasons. The deportation/situation was spinning out of control with the potential intervention and/or threat of use of force by the security officers.”