The Calcutta High Court on Friday dismissed the Centre’s deportation order against two migrant worker families from Birbhum who were pushed into Bangladesh earlier this year.

A division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Ritabrata Kumar Mitra directed that the six members of the two families — including eight-month pregnant Sonali Bibi — be brought back to West Bengal within four weeks. The court also rejected the Centre’s request for a stay on the order.

“We have ordered the persons to be returned to India. We have said what steps have to be taken to return them. Four weeks’ time is given,” the bench observed. It criticised the Centre’s move to accord Bangladeshi national status to the detainees. In an earlier hearing, it had asked the Centre to file an affidavit explain

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