‘Not Indian’: Why Assam man was declared ‘foreigner’ despite 15 documents to prove citizenship

An Assam resident was declared a "foreigner" after the Gauhati High Court upheld the decision of a Foreigners Tribunal, which had ruled that he was a foreigner despite his submission of 15 separate documents to prove his Indian citizenship, India Today reported.

The petitioner is a daily-wage worker living in a rented house near Guwahati. He had approached the High Court following the Foreigners Tribunal's ruling against him. The individual had submitted a robust paper trail, including the 1951 National Register of Citizens (NRC), old voter lists, a land deed, a school certificate, a Pan card, an Elector's Photo Identity Card (EPIC), and oral testimony from his father, the report noted.

However, on Tuesday (June 30), the Division Bench of Justices Kalyan Rai Surana and Shamima Jahan rejected his plea, observing that he could not establish the legal connection between himself and his claimed Indian ancestors. According to a Division Bench of the High Court, the petitioner did not satisfy the legal requirements for establishing his citizenship.

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The court also held that he had failed to discharge the burden of proof under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, which requires anyone accused of being a foreigner to establish that they are an Indian citizen.

We take a look.

What documents the petitioner submitted

The report noted that the petitioner submitted a pile of 15 documents to the Foreigners Tribunal in support of his citizenship claim.

Among the documents submitted were: computer-generated copies of the 1951 NRC listing his father and grandparents, certified voter lists spanning 1966 to 2017, a 1973 land deed executed by his grandfather, a 2017 school certificate from Hashdoba Anchalik High School, and his PAN card and Elector's Photo Identity Card (EPIC).

According to the written statement, he was born in 1988 and worked as a daily-wage labourer. Due to repeated river erosion, his family had to move from Charai Khasara to Dhobakura, then to Ghugudoba, and finally to Hashdoba, where he attended Class 5 at Hashdoba Anchalik High School in 1999.

He and his father also appeared before the Tribunal, where they gave oral testimony to strengthen his claim.

Why the court rejected the 1951 NRC records

The most crucial among the 15 documents rejected as inadmissible were the petitioner's 1951 NRC records.

The original NRC was prepared in Assam after the 1951 Census. When the updated NRC was published in 2019, applicants were required to establish their lineage by linking themselves to entries in the 1951 NRC or by furnishing legacy data issued before 1971, to prove their Indian citizenship. The NRC was updated to identify and exclude illegal immigrants.

Upholding the Tribunal’s finding, the Gauhati High Court said: "The NRC of 1951 were a photocopy/computer generated details, which was not proved in accordance with law".

"The submission was merely a computer-generated statement, bearing Image IDs and the note generated by Digitised Legacy Data Development (DLDD)  Version 6.0," the judgment said, according to the report.

The court held that the documents carried no evidentiary value as they lacked a mandatory certificate under Section 65B of the Evidence Act, 1872, now reflected in Section 63(4) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.

"Without a certificate as required under Section 65B of the Evidence Act, 1872 corresponding to Section 63(4) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, would have no evidentiary value," the court said, referring to the document.

What other documents the court rejected

Alongside the NRC, the court also rejected the petitioner's other documents, citing issues.

The 2017 school certificate was dismissed because the headmaster who issued it did not appear as a witness. Also, the school admission register was not produced before the Tribunal to verify the certificate.

The 1973 land purchase deed executed by the petitioner's grandfather was also not accepted due to a lack of clear lineage linkage. The tribunal stated: "There was no explanation as to why, if the land existed, it did not devolve on the legal heirs of the petitioner's grandfather," the report noted.

The court further ruled that neither the PAN card nor the Elector's Photo Identity Card (EPIC) could be accepted as proof of Indian citizenship. It was observed that courts have consistently ruled that these documents serve only as proof of identity for limited purposes and are not conclusive evidence of citizenship.

What discrepancies the court found in the voter list

The Gauhati High Court underscored glaring inconsistencies in the petitioner's voter lists.

One major mistake was a mismatch in age records. The judgment noted that a family member was listed as 25 years old in the 1979 voter list but as 29 years old in the 1989 electoral roll. The court also observed that some names appearing in the voter lists lacked supporting evidence that they were related to the petitioner, the report noted.

Another key concern for the court was that the family's names appeared in voter lists from three different villages—Dhobakura, Ghugudoba and Hashdoba—without adequate documentary evidence to explain the migration or a continuous family lineage.

According to the Court, the petitioner's and his father's testimony before the Tribunal was not enough to fill the gaps in the documentary evidence.

Moreover, the Court also held that, upon cross-examination, the petitioner's father was found to be different from the individual whose name appeared on the 2015 voter list, despite his name appearing on the 1970 voter list, the report noted.

What the court said

Following the analysis of the entire case, the Gauhati High Court ruled that the petitioner could not prove any legal infirmity in the Foreigners Tribunal’s order.

"No material to hold that the opinion assailed in this writ petition is bad on facts or in law. The petitioner’s counsel could not show that the said opinion was perverse on any count whatsoever," the court declared

Therefore, the court dismissed the writ petition and upheld the Foreigners Tribunal’s decision that the petitioner is not an Indian citizen.

With inputs from agencies