200 Additional Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) To Come Up In Six Districts of Assam

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The 200 Additional Foreigners Tribunals will be set up in six districts. Of these Kamrup (M) will have the maximum number of 67. As per the decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs & State Home and Political Department, 39 will be set up in Nagaon; 31 in Jorhat, 22 in Bongaigaon; 21 in Tezpur; and 20 in Silchar. Talking to The Sentinel, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said that “the 200 Additional Foreigners Tribunals will become operational from September this year.”

The role of the FTs will be crucial in the post-publication phase of the final NRC (National Register of Citizens). Names of people whose names will not figure in the final NRC will be referred to the FTs. The FT Members after the hearings and close scrutiny of the relevant documents of the persons concerned, will have to deliver the opinions (orders) as to whether the persons are Indians or foreigners.

Meanwhile, in order that the Additional Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) can become operational from September, the Gauhati High Court is speeding up the appointment processes of the Members of the FTs. There will be one Member and at least 10 employees in each FT.

An advertisement has already been floated for preparing a panel of 221 candidates for appointment as Members of Foreigners Tribunals in Assam. Meanwhile, the Assam Police Recruitment Board will float the advertisement for filling up the various posts of 2,000 staffers in the Additional FTs.

The interview process for the Members of these FTs will already started from July 15 while the results will be declared by August 20. Once the entire recruitment process for selection of Members is completed, the newly recruited Members are to join duty by September, 2019. Further, it is proposed that a two-day orientation programme for the newly appointed Members be conducted before the Members report for duty.

The Members will be initially appointed for a period of one year “which may be extended from time to time on need basis, subject to their attainment of maximum age fixed at 67 years.”

The qualifications required of a candidate for the post of Member are that he/she should be a citizen of India; a retired judicial officer of Assam Judicial Service or a retired civil servant (not below the rank of Secretary and Additional Secretary) having judicial experience or advocates not below the age of 35 years with at least seven years of practice. It also stated that “the candidates will have to have fair knowledge of official language of Assam and its (Assam) historical background giving rise to foreigner’s issues.”

At present, Assam has 100 Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) for the detection of foreigners. To tackle the large number of cases that are likely to crop up in the post-publication phase of the NRC, the Assam government had moved the Ministry of Home affairs (MHA) for the setting up of 1,000 Additional FTs. However, the MHA approved the establishment of 400 Additional FTs. Of these, 200 are to be set up in the first phase and the remaining ones in the second phase. Altogether 2,07,311 cases are pending at FTs till March 31, 2019. Udalguri 1 FT has the highest number pendency with 8119 cases.

After 200 FTs start functioning the total number of such tribunals will go upto 300.

Also Read: 200 Additional Foreigners Tribunals To Be Set Up In Six District Headquarters