Committed to bring back all stranded Indians home: Centre to Madras HC

The Centre on Friday informed the

Madras high court that it is committed to bringing back all Tamils stranded aboard in a phased manner.

It further undertook to operate as many flights as possible to evacuate the last Indian stranded abroad due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown.

"The government has proposed to operate 792 flights in phase V all over the world and out of which 127 flights are to be operated for Tamil Nadu alone. These operations shall be from August 4 to August 31, " the Centre said.

The submissions were made in the plea moved by DMK seeking direction to the state government to permit operation of such rescue flights to Tamil Nadu.

When the plea came up on Friday, a division bench of Justice M M Sundresh and Justice R Hemalatha recorded the submissions and disposed of the plea.

In a memo filed by the Centre, it was submitted that the ministry of external affairs has operated 1,248 flights the world over in Phase-I, Phase-II, and Phase-III.

This apart, it has proposed 1,203 flights in Phase-IV as of July 28 of which 130 flights are operated to Tamil Nadu.