The Supreme Court on Friday acceded to the Centre’s request for filing an additional affidavit over the continued incarceration of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and re-listed the matter on March 4, the development coming a day after the apex court reserved its judgment in the case.

The court usually proceeds with pronouncing the verdict once a judgment is reserved. However, on Friday, the bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan acceded to the special request of solicitor-general Tushar Mehta to file an additional affidavit on behalf of the external affairs ministry.

Mehta told the bench that the affidavit would have “wider ramifications” on the case.

The earlier affidavit was filed on behalf of the ministry of home affairs. Justice Pardiwala asked the registry to relist the matter on March 4.

While reserving its verdict on Thursday, the bench had questioned both the Centre and the Bengal government on the continued detention of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

“Tell us how many correctional homes are you going to keep in the country to house them? For how long are you going to put these people in the correctional homes? Illegal immigrants detained in prisons are maintained, provided shelter and medical aid…. If they were in any other country, they would have probably lost their lives,” the bench had told additional solicitor-general Aishwarya Bhati appearing for the Centre.

On Thursday, the bench had passed the following order: “We have heard Ms Vrinda Grover, the learned senior counsel appearing for Petitioner Nos 1 and 2 respectively, Mr Aarti Rajan, the learned counsel, appearing for Petitioner no 3, Ms Aishwaraya Bhati, the learned ASG appearing for the Union of India, and Mr Kunal Miami, the learned counsel appearing for the State of West Bengal.

"Arguments concluded. Judgment reserved. The learned counsel appearing for the parties shall file their written submissions along with the case laws they propose to rely upon within a period of one week from today….”

The top court was dealing with a 2013 petition filed by Maja Daruwala, the head of the NGO Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. The NGO had in 2011 written a letter to the Calcutta High Court chief justice about the plight of hundreds of Bangladesh immigrants who continued to be detained in prisons even after serving their sentence for illegally entering the country.