The Madras High Court Bench here on Thursday granted time till July 6 for the Centre to rescue 62 Tamil fishermen stranded in Saudi Arabia after Assistant Solicitor General G.R. Swaminathan assured it of having begun to take steps through diplomatic channels.
A Division Bench of Justices A. Selvam and B. Gokuldas adjourned the hearing on a habeas corpus petition filed by G. Thirumurugan, a relative of one of the stranded fishermen, through his counsel R. Alagumani, after the Centre sought time to rescue the fishermen and produce them in court.
In his affidavit, the petitioner had stated that his uncle K. Sethu Raja and other fishermen had gone to Saudi Arabia on different dates since 2013 to work under one Yusuf Khaleel in Al Jubail.
However, they ended up being cheated and ill-treated by their employer who was refusing to return their passports.
Claiming to have come to know of their plight through a video circulated on WhatsApp, the petitioner urged the court to intervene. His counsel pointed out that Chief Minister Jayalalithaa too had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi early this month seeking his intervention in the issue.
