Assam: 85% proceedees in Foreigners' Tribunals declared Indians

 High Court directs state government to review orders passed by foreigners’ tribunals

 STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Gauhati High Court directed the Assam government to review cases where the Foreigners' Tribunals (FTs) have declared applicants as citizens or as foreigners without proper analysis of the documents on record.

A bench of Justices Achintya Mallya Bujor Barua and Mitali Thakuria, recently noted in a submission made by the Assam government that almost 85% of the cases before the FTs eventually resulted in the proceedees being declared as citizens.

The court was hearing a petition by a man named Forhad Ali, who was declared a foreigner by a FT in Bongaigaon due to a discrepancy in his father's name.

In documents submitted by the petitioner, his father's name was written both as Habi Rahman and Habibar Rahman. The tribunal had concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to prove that the two were the same person.

But the HC remanded Rahman's case back to the FT, saying that there was no material on how it came to the conclusion.

The court had asked the Assam government to produce a random sample of orders by the FTs in which individuals were declared to be Indian citizens.

The court perused all such judgments and noted that in some of the decisions by the FTs, a good reasoned order had been passed based on analyzing the materials on record and arriving at a decision.

However, the bench stated that in many other orders, the FT arrives at the conclusion that the proceedee concerned is a citizen using the same procedure but without analyzing the implication of the materials or without stating any reason or arriving at any decision. In some of the matters, the court noticed that there is no proper record as to what material has been relied upon for arriving at the conclusion. "Such procedure adopted would have a far more serious consequence," the court observed.

While expressing concern that several individuals may have been wrongly declared as citizens or foreigners by the tribunals, the court remarked, "It has to be construed that the tribunals had not discharged the jurisdiction vested upon it under the law."

The bench was also concerned that if proceedees have been declared to be foreigner without stating any reason and without analyzing the materials on record and if the same procedure is adopted to declare someone to be a citizen, there was a good possibility that many proceedees who may be foreigners or illegal migrants have been wrongly declared to be citizens by the FTs.

The bench asked the Secretary in the Home Department to conduct a departmental review of all such references declaring the proceedees to be citizens and "wherever it is noticed that any such conclusion or declaration had been made without any analysis of the materials or without providing for any reason thereof and without arriving at any decision, the authorities in the State of Assam in the Home Department to take appropriate measures as may be available under the law."

Stating that if any further action is taken pursuant to this order, the bench said the result thereof should be put up in the public domain or before the people of the state for their knowledge, as the matter of illegal migrants in the Assam is an issue affecting the entire state.

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