Dispur ‘confused’ over duties of 221 newly appointed FT Members

Dispur ‘confused’ over duties of 221 newly appointed FT Members

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Though appointments were made for 221 Foreigners Tribunal (FT) Members in the State yet no work has been allotted to them till date. To make matters worse, the Home & Political Department that had made these appointments appear to be “confused” about the duties of these newly appointed FT Members.

This typical situation is reflected in a recent order of the Gauhati High Court with reference to ‘Writ Petition (Civil) 1754/2015’, “This Court has taken note of the fact that although 221 newly appointed Members were inducted in the month of September, 2019, and they are being paid regular salary, yet, neither any order of posting has been issued nor any work been assigned to these Members.”

The Court order further states that the “Home & Political (B) Department, Government of Assam, has submitted that since the NRC (National Register of Citizens) has not been notified by the Registrar General of India (RGI), there is some confusion as to the nature of duty that can be assigned to the newly appointed Members.”

The Court allowed four weeks’ time to the State government for submitting its reply as to whether “there is any impediment on the part of the Government of Assam to issue order of posting to the newly appointed 221 Members of the Tribunal”.

The next hearing on this case is on February 11, 2020.

On September 11, 2019, the Home and Political Department appointed 221 members for a year-long term. They were meant for the 200 new additional FTs as well as for the 21 vacant posts in the already existing 100 FTs. In its notification of September 11, 2019, the Department also mentioned that the places of posting of the newly appointed additional FT members would be made through a separate notification.

The 200 new additional FTs and appointment of their Members were made for those people who had failed to make it to the final NRC. Following this move by the Department, these left-out people would have been able to appeal to these FTs within 120 days from the date of receiving the ‘NRC rejection orders’. However, no such ‘rejection order’ has been issued so far.

An ‘NRC rejection order’ is significant as it is supposed to make an NRC-ineligible applicant know as to why his/her application for inclusion in the final NRC has been rejected.

The 221 FT members were selected by the Gauhati High Court after publishing an advertisement and holding interviews. They were initially attached to the existing FTs so as to let them observe the functioning of such Tribunals.

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