By Scroll Staff
A Muslim woman who had been expelled from India in December moved the Supreme Court on Monday challenging a Gauhati High Court ruling that refused to hear her plea against a tribunal order that declared her a foreigner.
In September 2019, the foreigners’ tribunal had declared Aheda Khatun a foreigner for failing to establish a connection between her Indian parents and grandparents.
The tribunal had not considered documents such as four consecutive voter lists that showed her parents as electors, her school certificate, the permanent residency certificate issued by the village chief and a registered gift deed of a land parcel given to her by her father.
Foreigners tribunals in Assam are quasi-judicial bodies that adjudicate on matters of citizenship. However, the tribunals have been accused of arbitrariness and bias, and of declaring people foreigners on the basis of minor spelling mistakes, a lack of documents or lapses in memory.
She had been held in a detention camp till the High Court in August dismissed her plea, refusing to interfere in her matter.
The court had cited Khatun’s failure to explain the six-year delay in challenging the tribunal’s order. However, it had not commented on the merits of her case.
On December 17, Khatun was among the 15 declared foreigners that the Assam government had ordered to leave the country under the 1950 Immigrants Expulsion from Assam Act. The 44-year-old is still in Bangladesh.
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