The Union government on Friday told the Supreme Court that it would bring back some persons who were “pushed” into Bangladesh to verify their citizenship, Live Law reported.The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi was hearing the government’s petition challenging a Calcutta High Court order that set aside the Centre’s decision to deport six persons, including a pregnant woman from West Bengal and her family, to Bangladesh.Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union government, told the court that the Centre would bring back the persons “keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case”.However, he added that this should not be considered as a precedent to be followed in other similar cases, Live Law reported.Following Mehta’s submission, the court said: “Their continuation in India will depend on the outcome of such enquiry.”The solicitor general was quoted as stating that it would take about eight to ten days to bring the persons back to India.The caseIn June 2025, Sunali Khatun, her husband and their son, as well as another woman Sweety Bibi and her two sons had been taken into custody in Delhi and sent to Bangladesh. The six persons maintain that they hail from West Bengal’s Birbhum district.In September, the Calcutta High Court set aside the deportation order against all six of them. It had directed that they be brought back to West Bengal within four weeks. The High Court had passed the order on a petition filed by Khatun’s father Bhodu Sekh.Two days before the four-week period ended, the Union government in October challenged the order before the Supreme Court. The government and the Delhi Police questioned whether the High Court had the jurisdiction to hear the case.The Supreme Court was hearing this challenge on Friday.However, in December, Khatun and her son Sabir were brought back to India on humanitarian grounds. The Union government had said that it would do so “without prejudice” to New Delhi’s “contentions on merits and our right to put them under surveillance”.This had come after the Supreme Court, taking note of Khatun’s advanced pregnancy, asked the Union government whether the mother and the son could return to India.Since the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam in April 2025, the police in several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, persons who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.Scroll has also reported on several cases of persons who were forced into Bangladesh being brought back to India, as the authorities had failed to follow the process laid down by the Union home ministry for such deportations.Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.Also read:Bangladeshi or Indian? Investigating Modi government’s crackdown on ‘illegal immigrants’Pregnant woman from Bengal forced into Bangladesh. Family has land records from five generations ago