Assam: Supreme Court Issues Notice to Govt On Plea Challenging Discharge of 200 FT Members

GUWAHATI:  The Supreme Court, on Friday, sent a notice to the Assam government regarding a petition contesting the state's decision to terminate the employment of more than 200 individuals who had been selected by the state government to work for 200 new appellate Foreigners Tribunals that were to be established in 2019 to handle appeals of individuals who had been excluded from the NRC.

Following a SC order in May 2019, 221 appointments as tribunal members were made after consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

The newly appointed individuals included lawyers, former judges, and former government employees.

However, the home and political department of the state issued a notification in October of last year stating that "the use of the members along with the 2000 jobs of ministerial staff in 200 Appellate Foreigners Tribunals will be considered as and when the NRC is notified."

The petitioners claim that because the new extra tribunals were not yet functioning, they were affixed to the current tribunals.

The 200 members of the appellate FT had to be added to the existing 100 regular FTs in order to handle the remaining cases that were still waiting because the NRC authority has not yet sent rejection letters to the ineligible applicants.

The petitioners, who were expelled from the additional Foreigners Tribunals, have criticized this government order as being arbitrary, discriminatory, and a violation of Articles 14 and 16.

Sankaranarayanan said before the supreme court that although the new members were supposed to "handle instances of foreigners, who have unlawfully migrated from Bangladesh or are illegally resident in Assam," the state government misclassified their service by "tying it with the NRC."

According to the petitioners, the government intentionally "misinterpreted" the purpose of their appointment to be limited to "deciding NRC-related issues" in order to order the termination of their services on the justification that the final citizenship register has not yet been created.

Sankaranarayanan argued that this action went against the top court's directive to put the additional tribunals into operation.

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