Gauhati HC upholds order declaring Assam woman a foreigner

The Gauhati High Court has upheld a Foreigners Tribunal order declaring an Assam woman a foreigner, ruling that PAN and voter identity cards alone cannot establish citizenship or family links without supporting records. It also rejected her NRC application receipt

Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court has rejected a woman’s claim to Indian citizenship, holding that a PAN card and an Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) alone cannot establish citizenship or prove a family relationship unless supported by the records on the basis of which they were issued.

The court upheld a Foreigners Tribunal order declaring Kulchan Begum, a resident of Darrang district, a foreigner and dismissed her writ petition.

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The woman had challenged a 2018 order of a Foreigners Tribunal in Mangaldai, which declared her a foreigner who had entered India after March 25, 1971.

A division bench of Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Susmita Phukan Khaund observed that the documents she relied on, including her father’s PAN card and voter card and her own electoral identity card, were insufficient to establish her citizenship or her relationship with her claimed parents.

“The PAN card and EPIC exhibited by the petitioner are not proof of citizenship. These are documents that are issued upon self-application without any formal enquiry by the Income Tax Department and Election Commission of India. Therefore, unless the records supplementing the PAN card and EPIC are proved, the said exhibited documents cannot be accepted as proof of Indian citizenship,” the High Court said in its November 5 judgment.

The petitioner claimed that she was born on April 25, 1977, and brought up in Luitpar, Kharghuli, in Guwahati.

She identified Sabed Ali and Jaheda Khatun as her grandparents and claimed that their names appeared in the 1966 and 1970 electoral rolls of Nosotra village in the then Kamrup district. She said Ali’s son, Abu Chand Mohammad, was her father.

To establish her citizenship, she relied on the electoral rolls of 1966 and 1970, her father’s PAN card and EPIC, her own voter identity card, a family ration card, the 2018 electoral roll and an acknowledgement receipt for her National Register of Citizens (NRC) application.

She also submitted that her father was an Indian citizen whose name appeared in electoral records and who had contested the 2009 Lok Sabha election from Barpeta and the 2011 Assam Assembly election from Baghbar. He had also served as an elected councillor of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation in 2013.

The High Court, however, held that his electoral and political credentials could not establish her claimed relationship with him.

“A mere fact that the projected father of the petitioner had offered his candidature in Lok Sabha election and State Assembly election and that he was an elected ward member of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation, is not sufficient to prove that the petitioner has been able to establish her linkage with the said person,” the judgment said.

The court also found inconsistencies in the petitioner’s claimed family history and the ages recorded in the electoral rolls. It noted that her claimed father’s name first appeared in the 1997 electoral roll, when he was recorded as being 50 years old.

The court observed that no evidence established the continuous residence of her claimed grandparents and father in Assam between 1970 and 1997, a period of 27 years. It said the petitioner was required to establish that her grandparents and father had continuously resided in the State.

The bench further observed that the petitioner’s documents failed to establish the necessary family links and that the certificate issued by an Area Sabha representative had not been proved by its author.

The ration card and the 2018 electoral roll also failed to establish her relationship with her claimed parents, the court said.

“None of the exhibited documents helps the petitioner discharge her burden under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946 to prove that she is a citizen of India and the daughter of Indian parents,” the judges observed.

The petitioner also submitted a copy of an application in the NRC process. However, the court ruled that the document could not be accepted as evidence because the final draft of the NRC had not been updated when the Tribunal delivered its opinion.

The reference against her was registered in 2000 under the erstwhile Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983, before being transferred to the Foreigners Tribunal system following the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the Act in 2005.

Upholding the Tribunal’s opinion, the High Court dismissed her writ petition and recalled and revoked the interim bail granted to her on April 18, 2022.

Foreigners’ Tribunals in Assam are quasi-judicial bodies that adjudicate citizenship matters based on lineage, with March 25, 1971, serving as the cut-off date for entry into the State.

Those declared foreigners by the tribunals can challenge the orders before the High Court or the Supreme Court.