Gauhati HC quashes Nagaon Tribunal's order declaring Assam resident foreigner

The Gauhati High Court on January 17 set aside an order declaring an Assam resident as a foreigner.

Notably, the Gauhati HC observed that the Nagaon Foreigners Tribunal did not take note of the material on record while passing the order to Abbas Ali.

Upon the disposition of the petitioner's mother and the other materials on record, a division bench of Justice Achintya Malla Bujor Barua and Justice Arun Dev Choudhary successfully establish a link with his mother and father and therefore he was pronounced not a foreigner.

As we have arrived at the clear conclusion that the petitioner has established his link with Abbas Ali whose name appeared in the voters' list of 1965 of Goroimari village and the materials through which the link was established have not been taken note of by the learned Tribunal, we accordingly, set aside the order/opinion dated 29.06.2018 in FT Case No. 252/2009 of the Foreigners Tribunal 1st at Nagaon, Assam and declare that it cannot be held that the petitioner is a foreigner who had entered the State of Assam subsequent to 24.03.1971," said the court. 

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Earlier, the Supreme Court had also decided to follow a plan for determining the base year for NRC name inclusion. Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, which was added in 1985 as a result of an amendment in support of the Assam Accord, had been the subject of arguments in the Supreme Court challenging its constitutionality.

According to the provision, individuals who arrived in Assam on or after January 1, 1966, but before March 25, 1971, from certain territories—including Bangladesh in 1985—and have since become residents of Assam are required to register for citizenship under Section 18. 

As a result, the deadline for granting citizenship to Bangladeshi migrants in Assam is set for March 25, 1971.

Section 6A's opponents have argued that the provision is discriminatory because it was specifically enacted to safeguard Bangladeshi trespassers from Assam.