Assam / Paralysed man declared foreigner: SC issues notice to Centre, Assam

The Indian Express : Jul 04, 2019, 09:49 AM
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Central and Assam governments to respond to a petition filed a paralysed man languishing in detention for over a year after being declared a foreigner by a tribunal in an ex parte proceeding.

Azizul Hoque, represented by senior advocate Sanjay Hegde and advocate Anas Tanwir, was declared to be a foreigner by the foreigners tribunal in Assam and he had been in detention since March 24, 2017.

He sought a stay of the ex parte order as he fears he may be deported to Bangladesh any time.

“Petitioner [Hoque] is a citizen of this country inasmuch as he has spent his entire life here and now authenticity of being an Indian citizen is being called into question and is on the verge of being thrown away to an alien land out of the country of which he has been a proud citizen for so many years,” the petition said.

Mr. Hoque had failed to appear before the tribunal to present his defence due to lower limb paralysis. Nor could he depute anyone to appear on his behalf. He approached the apex court after the Gauhati High Court denied him relief despite accepting his medical certificate showing him to suffer from paralysis.

Mr. Hoque submitted that neither the tribunal nor the High Court had appreciated the fact that he had produced ‘jamabandi’ documents in the name of his grandfather issued by the Deputy Commissioner, Nagaon, in 1941-42 along with the voter list excerpts of 1965 showing the names of his grandfather, grandmother, father and mother.

He had produced his school certificate, certifying his date of birth to be March 5, 1978 and, therefore, he was an Indian citizen by birth as per Section 3 of the Citizenship Act.

The petitioner said his name appeared in the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi ordered the Centre and the State of Assam to respond within two weeks.

A Special Bench of the CJI and Justice Rohinton Nariman is monitoring the finalisation of NRC in Assam and had made it clear that it will not extend the July 31 deadline for publication of the final NRC.

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