In the appeal, a bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta of the Apex Court set aside the judgements of the Gauhati High Court that upheld declarations of 27 appellants as foreigners and remanded the matter to the concerned Foreigners Tribunals for fresh adjudication.
The Court reasoned that Citizenship and foreigner status constitute high Constitutional and legal significance and such declaration of foreign status to people by the state need to be done through fair, lawful and reasonable procedure under section 9 of Foreigners Act, 1946. Having reasoned so, the Court also acknowledged the State’s legitimate interest in preventing illegal claims to Indian citizenship.
However, the Court very categorically stated that they have not examined the merits of the claims of citizenship by the appellants or have not expressed any opinion on the genuineness or admissibility of any documents relied upon by them and the same is to be decided by the Foreigners tribunals independently.
The High Court mentioned that they had dismissed the appeals against the orders of the Foreigners’ Tribunals ex-parte order of declaring petitioners to be foreigners. It also noted that despite serving due notice to the petitioners none of them appeared before the Tribunals and in the absence of any written statement or documents theTribunal had no option but to affirm the reference.
Case titled: SABITRI DEY @ SWASTHI DEY Vs UNION OF INDIA
Source: The Hindu newspaper: Fair, reasoned process must decide citizenship: Supreme Court – The Hindu