Additional FT (Foreigners Tribunals) members of Assam given assignments, at last

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: At last the members of the additional FTs (Foreigners Tribunals) were assigned works after 20 months of their appointment. The State Political (B) Department issued an order to this effect recently.

According to the order, the 179 members of the Additional FTs will dispose of the pending referral cases in the existing FTs in the State. Such cases are called 'referral' as they are 'referred' to the FTs by the Border Police to ascertain the nationality status of people of suspected nationalities.

At present, the State has 100 FTs. After the publication of the NRC (National Register of Citizens), in September 2019 the State Government decided to set up 200 additional FTs to ascertain the nationality status of the over 19 lakh NRC ineligible applicants. The decision had the nod of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). However, since the NRC authority opted not to issue NRC rejection slips to the NRC ineligible applicants, the members appointed for the Additional 200 FTs had to sit idle, despite drawing their salaries. Even though they were attached to the existing 100 FTs, no work assignments were given to them.

There was a difference of opinions between the State Government and the MHA. While the MHA thought that the members of the additional FTs should be assigned to dispose of the pending referral cases in the existing FTs, Dispur kept on insisting that since the members of the Additional FTs were appointed to ascertain the nationality status of the NRC ineligible applicants they should only be engaged for that purpose.

However, after the formation of the new government at Dispur with Himanta Biswa Sarma as the Chief Minister, it reviewed its earlier stand and agreed to assign the pending referral cases of the exiting FTs to the members of the Additional FTs.

The order issued by the Political (B) Department also directed the members of the existing 100 FTs to allocate the pending referral cases to the attached members of the Additional FTs.

More than one lakh referral cases are still pending in the 100 existing FTs in the State.

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