Guwahati: The members who were earlier appointed for 200 additional Foreigners’ Tribunals (FT) to primarily handle cases related to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will soon approach the Supreme Court against the Assam governments’ decision of not to extend their services after September 23 this year.
The notification signed by Assam Home Department Commissioner and Secretary Diganta Bara on October 14 stated that the additional members working in Foreigners Tribunals have been removed from duty, effective from September 23. At that time, the question arose about the validity of the judgments given by these attached members between September 23 and October 14.
Also, it created displeasure among these members with the way they have been removed and some of them are preparing to go to the apex court challenging the government notification.
Notably, a Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT) is a quasi-judicial body and a member of the FT has a designation similar to a judge. In addition to 100 regular FTs, the Assam government appointed practicing lawyers, retired civil servants, and judicial officers for the additional 200 FTs soon after the complete draft NRC was published in August 2019.
These additional FTs were believed to deal with the cases of 19.06 lakh people who were left out of the NRC list.
Now, the discontinuation of the services of the additional FT members has also put a cloud on updating NRC in Assam which was done spending Rs 1,600 crore of public exchequer money.
On anonymity, one such FT member told IANS that the government has used the word ‘forfeiture’ while issuing their removal notification which is derogatory.
He said that according to the Civil Service Rules, the term ‘forfeiture’ cannot be used to remove someone from service. If this term is to be used exclusively, then the person concerned should first be charged and investigated. After that, if found guilty, ‘forfeiture’ can be imposed. Moreover, as these members have been selected as per the High Court order, the government cannot ‘forfeit’ their tenure.
In another case related to Foreigners’ Tribunal, objections were raised before the Gauhati High Court on this ‘forfeiture’ word used in the government notification on Wednesday. Responding to this, State’s Additional Advocate General D. Majumder said that if inappropriate words were used in the October 14 notification, it can be rectified but it requires some time.
Meanwhile, the members will approach the Supreme Court challenging the whole government notification which has put a question mark on the NRC exercise also.
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