The Delhi High Court Monday sought the Centre’s stand on UK academic Filippo Osella’s petition seeking records related to his deportation from Thiruvananthapuram airport in March, and quashing of the same as arbitrary and illegal.
Osella, who is a professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Sussex, has also sought a declaration that his deportation was arbitrary, unreasonable and illegal. He was deported from Thiruvananthapuram on March 23.
Justice Yashwant Varma granted time to a central government counsel to seek instructions, and listed the case for consideration on October 12.
In the petition, Osella (65), has said he was treated as a “terrorist or some kind of hardened criminal” by authorities in India when he “was escorted back and bundled into the same aircraft in which he had arrived”.
“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,” reads the petition.
Osella’s plea further states that he was not even allowed to get in touch with his friends or colleagues in Kerala or India. “The immigration officers behaved in a remarkably inhuman way, even when the petitioner explained that he was just an academic and teacher, who had been doing research in India for more than thirty years,” read the petition, adding he was even denied access to life-saving medicines from his luggage.
The petition also states that Foreign Regional Registration Officer, Thiruvananthapuram on March 29 had sent a letter to Cochin University of Science and Technology seeking “certain clarification” on Osella’s research. The plea terms such actions as “afterthoughts” post deportation.
Osella is a specialist in Kerala society, and has conducted extensive research for over 30 years in the state, mapping its social and cultural transformation. The petition states that he routinely examines PhD thesis submitted by students in Indian universities and collaborates with a wide range of institutions like IIT Madras, Hyderabad Central University, Madras Institute of Development Studies and Cochin University of Science and Technology.