Students holding placards protest against Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022, in Bengaluru.
The Supreme Court on Thursday urged Attorney General KK Venugopal to use his office to help Indian students stranded in Ukraine amid Russian aggression. The Supreme Court said this when the AG was appearing in another case. Notably, a petition seeking immediate evacuation of Indian students was mentioned before the CJI this morning.
A bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana took note of a lawyer’s submission that several students were stranded near the Romanian border in the cold and the government was not operating flights from Romania.
“The flights are being operated from Poland and Hungary and not from Romania. The students, including many girls, are stranded without any facilities,” the lawyer told the bench.
The bench said it sympathizes with the students in Ukraine and assured that it will seek the opinion of the attorney general in the matter.
“We sympathize with the students, we feel very bad. But can we instruct President Putin of Russia to stop the war?” Justice Ramana said.
The CJI then told AG that “there are thousands of students like this but few have come here… we can’t say, please use your good offices and do something.”
The AG asked whether the students in respect of whom the petition has been filed had crossed the border with Ukraine. Senior advocate AM Dar, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that they have not crossed. The AG said, “The Indian government has sent a minister from Romania to ensure that once they come back. So I want to know what is the problem.”
“They haven’t crossed over to where they are… It’s in Ukraine, they weren’t allowed to travel, that’s the problem,” Dar said.
The CJI asked the lawyer to give a copy of the petition to the AG. “Please watch and see if you can help,” the CJI told the AG.
The AG said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken to both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He said the government has sent ministers to countries that share a land border with Ukraine.
India is evacuating its citizens from Ukraine’s western neighbors such as Romania, Hungary and Poland through special flights as Ukrainian airspace has been closed since February 24 due to Russian military strikes.
Four Union ministers have gone to Ukraine’s western neighbors to evacuate Indian nationals. Hardeep Singh Puri is in Hungary, Jyotiraditya Scindia is in Romania, Kiren Rijiju is in Slovakia and VK Singh is in Poland.