The Centre on Monday informed the Madras High Court that it cannot foot the bill for the air travel of those who had gone to foreign countries on tourist visas and were unable to return due to the COVID-19 lockdown.
The submission was made in response to a PIL plea filed in the court, seeking a direction to the Ministry of External Affairs to bring back 256 Tamil tourists reportedly stranded in Malaysia.
When the case was listed before Justices Vineet Kothari and Pushpa Sathyanarayana, the litigant, M. Gnanasekar, an advocate, stated that some of the 256 tourists had returned to India by paying travel expenses out of their own pockets.
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Since the others were unable to return due to paucity of funds, he urged the government to step in to bring them back.