{"id":50430,"date":"2019-07-23T19:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T13:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?p=50430"},"modified":"2019-07-23T16:37:58","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T11:07:58","slug":"7-pm-the-judicial-presumption-of-non-citizenship-23rd-july-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-the-judicial-presumption-of-non-citizenship-23rd-july-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"7 PM | The judicial presumption of non-citizenship | 23rd July, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Context: <\/strong>The\nControversy in Assam pertaining to citizenship.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>More\nin news: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>On May 17, in a very short hearing, a\nthree-judge Bench of the Supreme Court (the Chief Justie of India Ranjan Gogoi\nand Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna) decided a batch of 15 petitions\nunder the title&nbsp;Abdul Kuddus v Union of India.<\/li><li>As many as 64,000 people have been\ndeclared non-citizens in ex-parte proceedings, i.e., without being heard by the\nForeigners Tribunals.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>National\nRegister of Citizens (NRC):<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The Citizenship Act, 1955 provides for\u00a0compulsorily registration of every citizen of India and issuance of National Identity Card to him. <\/li><li>The Citizenship Rules, 2003 framed under the Citizenship Act, 1955 prescribe the manner of preparation of the National Register of Citizens.\u00a0 <\/li><li>There is a special provision under the Rules to prepare National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam which is application based and distinct from the rest of India where the process is enumeration based.<\/li><li><strong>NRC updation in Assam<\/strong>: <ul><li>Citizenship being a subject of the Union List, policy decisions, guidelines and funds for NRC updation are provided by the Central Government but its implementation is done through the State Government machinery under the guidance of the Registrar General of India who functions as the Registrar General of Citizen Registration under Rule 15 of Citizenship Rules, 2003 as amended in 2009 and 2010.<\/li><li>All the names appearing in the NRC, 1951, or any of the Electoral Rolls up to the midnight of 24th March 1971 together are called <strong>Legacy Data.<\/strong> Thus, there will be two requirements for inclusion in updated NRC \u2013\u00a0<ul><li>Existence of a person\u2019s name in the pre-1971 period <\/li><li>Proving linkage with that person.\u00a0<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>The provisions governing NRC updation in Assam are\u00a0The Citizenship Act, 1955, and\u00a0The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity cards) Rules, 2003.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Issues\nwith Citizenship in Assam:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The first National Register of Citizens\nwas compiled in 1951, after the Census was completed that year. The Partition\nof the subcontinent and communal riots had just triggered vast population\nexchanges at the border.<\/li><li>Since 2015, the state has been in the\nprocess of updating the 1951 register. One of the stated aims of the exercise\nis to identify so-called \u201cillegal immigrants\u201d in the state, many of whom are\nbelieved to have poured into Assam after the Bangladesh War of 1971.<\/li><li>In 1979, about eight years after the\nwar, the state saw an anti-foreigners\u2019 agitation. Assamese ethnic nationalists\nclaimed illegal immigrants had entered electoral rolls and were taking away the\nright of communities defined as indigenous to determine their political future.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The\nPresent Issue:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the State of\nAssam, there are two ongoing processes concerning the question of citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Proceedings before the Foreigners\nTribunals, which have been established under an executive order of the Central\ngovernment.<\/li><li>The NRC, a process overseen and driven\nby the Supreme Court.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Both\nof them functions independently and thus have caused significant chaos and confusion\nfor individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Foreigners\nTribunals:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>These are quasi-judicial bodies meant to \u201cfurnish opinion on the question as to whether a person is or is not a foreigner within the meaning of Foreigners Act, 1946\u201d. <\/li><li>The Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964 was issued by the Central Government under Section 3 of The Foreigners Act, 1946. <\/li><li>It is applicable to the whole country. <\/li><li>Major amendments in the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964 were undertaken in 2013.<\/li><li>The Foreigners Tribunals get two kinds of cases: <ul><li>against whom a \u201creference\u201d has been made by border police<\/li><li>Whose names in the electoral rolls have a D (Doubtful) against them.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The\nControversy:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>While hearing the\nmatter of Abdul Kuddus, a resident of Assam who had been declared a foreigner\nby the Foreigner\u2019s Tribunal on February 18, 2019, a Supreme Court bench\ncomprising the Chief Justice of India (CJI), Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv\nKhanna, when informed that Kuddus\u2019 name also appeared in the final draft of the\nNRC for Assam along with his family, directed the case to be listed before the\nbench hearing the main NRC issue. <\/li><li>As a result of this conflict between the\nongoing NRC process and the opinions of the Foreigners\u2019 Tribunal, the court\nperhaps had initially thought it fit to list the matters before the bench that\nwas already overseeing the updating of the citizenship register.<\/li><li>Subsequently, 15 separate special leave\npetitions (SLP) came up before the Supreme Court involving the identical issue.<\/li><li>The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/tag\/Supreme_Court\/?utm=bodytag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Supreme\nCourt&nbsp;<\/a>rejected the petitioners\u2019 arguments, and\nheld that the \u201copinion\u201d of the Foreigners Tribunal was to be treated as a\n\u201cquasi-judicial order\u201d, and was therefore final and binding on all parties\nincluding upon the preparation of the NRC.<\/li><li>Finally, now\nwe have a situation where an individual who finds their name in the\nNRC,&nbsp;is still declared a foreigner because the Supreme Court has held that\nthe opinion of the Foreigners\u2019 Tribunal will be final.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Issues with the Foreigners\nTribunals:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Foreigners Tribunals were established by\na simple executive order. <\/li><li>Qualifications to serve on the Tribunals\nhave been progressively loosened and the vague requirement of \u201cjudicial\nexperience\u201d has now been expanded to include bureaucrats. <\/li><li>Tribunals are given sweeping powers to\nrefuse examination of witnesses if in their opinion it is for \u201cvexatious\u201d\npurposes. &nbsp;Subject to provisions of this manner, Tribunals are left free\nto \u201cregulate their own procedure for disposal of cases.\u201d<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Way Forward:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A person\u2019s\ncitizenship is a basic human right. Declaring people foreigners in haste\nwithout judicially verifying their credentials can leave many human beings\nstateless. Under such circumstances, the\nTribunal must uphold their fundamental constitutional promises and function\nwith complete independence, without any hint of arbitrariness or discrimination\nin the adjudication process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/lead\/the-judicial-presumption-of-non-citizenship\/article28660624.ece\">https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/lead\/the-judicial-presumption-of-non-citizenship\/article28660624.ece<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context: The Controversy in Assam pertaining to citizenship.&nbsp; More in news: On May 17, in a very short hearing, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court (the Chief Justie of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna) decided a batch of 15 petitions under the title&nbsp;Abdul Kuddus v Union of India. As&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-the-judicial-presumption-of-non-citizenship-23rd-july-2019\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">7 PM | The judicial presumption of non-citizenship | 23rd July, 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":49370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-pm","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/7-PM.png?fit=1000%2C500&ssl=1","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704716208},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}