The North East Minorities Students’ Union (NEMSU) has sought minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi's help to ensure judicious and not arbitrary trials in the Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) in the cases of people who have been excluded from the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) list.
"Most of the excluded people are financially so weak that they cannot even think about going to the HC or SC for further recourse," the group said in a letter to Naqvi and sought a fair means of justice at the courts created for foreigners in Assam.
In the post National Register of Citizens (NRC) phase of deciding the fate of the 19 lakh people excluded from the list, which the External Affair ministry (MeA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said will be "fairly long" process, 400 Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) have taken centre stage in Assam.
The Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) are quasi-judicial bodies meant to "furnish opinion on the question as to whether a person is a foreigner within the meaning of Foreigners Act, 1946". Until recently, Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) dealt with 2 kinds of cases - those against whom a "reference" is made by the Border Police & those whose electoral identity is "doubtful".
However, tensions are high as all the cases of people excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) being referred to these quasi-judicial bodies, given that the court has the power to declare a person foreigner via ex-parte proceedings. Earlier, K Kishan Reddy, Union Home Minister, in a reply to an unstarred question, informed the Lok Sabha that 63,959 people have so far been declared foreigners via ex-parte proceedings in the Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) in Assam from 1985 to Feb 2019.
In another reply, the MoS once again told the Parliament that 1,17,164 people have been declared foreigners in the state till 2019. Given the total number of verdicts, it is clear that more than half have been declared ex-parte.
The North East Minorities Students’ Union (NEMSU) letter raised the concerns of "minor reasons" such as wrong "spellings, difference in the surnames & intentional act on part of some officers" because of which persons have been excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
"These small irregularities due to clerical or human errors have caused troubles to many people. Some of them are indigenous people of Assam. People may have been excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) because of these errors but the Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) must judiciously take note of it during the hearing of appeals," Zulfikar Ahmed, General Secretary of the North East Minorities Students’ Union (NEMSU) told.
While the External Affairs Ministry had clarified on Sept 2 that people left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) aren't "stateless" & will continue to enjoy all the rights as before till they exhaust all remedies under the law, Ahmad wonders if they would also be given economic & legal assistance to attend the hearings.
"Most people who have been excluded belong to poor & weak sections of the society. A trip from an interior village in Assam to the Guwahati HC itself costs at least Rs 5,000. If a person wants to appeal to a higher court, where will the money come from? Going & appealing to the SC itself costs over Rs 50,000," Ahmed said.
The 19 lakh people excluded have been given a window of 120 days to approach the Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) to prove their citizenship. Once declared a foreigner, however, a person can be detained under Section 4 of the Foreigners Act, 1946.
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