Supreme Court Asks Petitioner To Come Back With "Structured Reliefs" In Plea Relating To Assam-NRC

The Supreme Court, on Monday, deferred the hearing of the plea, inter alia, seeking Court's indulgence to stop the alleged harassment of people belonging to religious and linguistic minority communities in Assam in the guise of detection and deportation of alleged foreigners.

The petition also seeks direction to authorities to not delete/exclude names from the 'final draft' of the NRC published on 31.08.2019; stop further identification of 'Doubtful' voters without proper verification; finalise the draft NRC only after providing opportunity to the person whose name are not there in the 2019 list to prefer appeal against the rejection of their applications. In another set of prayers, the petition beseeches the Bench to amend the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Foreigners (Tribunals) Orders, 1964 by inserting certain safeguards; to review the judgment of the Apex Court which had declared the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983 as ultra vires. By way of the said order the Apex Court has also directed the concerned authorities to decide cases relating to citizenship of suspected foreigners under the Foreigners Act 1946, observing that external and internal disturbances have been caused in Assam by the unabated influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh. The petition claims that the said order has emboldened the authorities to level reckless allegations, arbitrarily refer cases without fair investigation, and facilitated arbitrary adjudication by the Foreigners Tribunals. The burden of proof to establish citizenship was shifted to the 'poor applicants' in tune with the Foreigners Act in absence of the safety mechanisms laid down in the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983.

A Bench comprising Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli asked Senior Counsel, Mr. Sanjay Hegde appearing on behalf of the petitioner to come back with more structured reliefs in the petition, as the prayers in the present petition is set out in an haphazard manner. It specifically stated that in exercise of jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, 1950, it would not be possible to review an order of the Apex Court as prayed in the present petition.

The petition submits that the 2019 list has left out 19,06,657 applicants. The process of proving citizenship status is difficult and the difficulty increases manifold for married women trying to establish citizenship by proving their lineage. The petition also raises allegations of ethnic cleansing. In the same year another supplementary list was published. It points out that after the conclusion of the Assam Legislative Assembly elections in 2021, the newly appointed Chief Minister, Dr. Himanta Biswas Sharma had announced that 20% of the NRC will be reviewed in the border areas and 10% in the other areas. The State Coordinator of the Assam NRC has also approached the Apex Court seeking re-verification of the draft NRC and the supplementary list of NRC under Clause 4(3) of Schedule of Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.

The petition was filed through Advocate-on-Record, Mr. Adeel Ahmed.

[Case Status: Tarek Aktar Ansari v UOI & Ors W.P.(C) No. 130/2022]