The Gauhati High Court dismissed a writ petition challenging the opinion of a Foreigners’ Tribunal that had declared the petitioner to be a foreigner, on the basis that the petitioner had failed to prove that he is a citizen of India born to bona fide Indian parents. The petition arose after the Foreigners’ Tribunal in Kamrup (Metro), Guwahati, in 2018, had held that the petitioner failed to discharge his burden of proof required to establish Indian citizenship by birth through authentic linkage to his projected father and grandfather. Before the Tribunal, the petitioner claimed to be the son of one Md. Kalachan Ali, and he attempted to establish his lineage by relying on archival voter lists, including a 1966 voters’ list showing the names of Abdul Hamid and Kadbhanu Nesa as his alleged grandparents and a 1993 voters’ list showing Kalachan Ali as his father. He also pointed to legacy data from the National Register of Citizens and electoral photo identity cards of himself and his purported father, and filed self-declaratory affidavits to explain variations in the spellings of certain names. The petitioner’s projected father and another witness were examined by the Tribunal to support the claim that Abdul Hamid was also called Hamid Ali.
The Foreigners’ Tribunal rejected the documentary and oral evidence tendered by the petitioner, concluding that he had not been able to establish a necessary linkage with his alleged father and grandfather and, consequently, had not proven his citizenship by birth. Aggrieved by this, the petitioner approached the High Court seeking, among other reliefs, a remand of the matter based on additional documents that had been annexed to the writ petition, including land revenue records dating back to 1952. The State opposed any interference with the Tribunal’s opinion, maintaining that the petitioner could not demonstrate a connection to his projected ancestors and asserting that documents which were not exhibited before the Tribunal could not be appreciated in a writ jurisdiction.
The Division Bench of the Gauhati High Court, comprising Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Anjan Moni Kalita, upheld the settled legal position that courts are not required to consider documents annexed solely with the writ petition that were not presented and exhibited before the Tribunal in the original proceeding. The court also examined the contents of the petitioner’s evidence-on-affidavit and found that it lacked a positive and unequivocal statement regarding the names of his projected father and grandfather. The High Court observed that while the petitioner projected the existence of his grandmother up to the year 2016, he had no personal knowledge of his grandfather’s name, relying only on documentary references. This, the court remarked, was peculiar and insufficient to establish lineage.
In reviewing the documentary evidence, the High Court considered the contents of a draft consolidated National Register of Citizens list dated July 30, 2018, and found that it contradicted the petitioner’s own projection regarding the identities of his grandparents. Given this inconsistency, the bench held that the petitioner’s claim that his grandfather was Abdul Hamid and his grandmother was Kadbhanu Nesa could not be accepted at face value. The court further noted that the petitioner had obtained a certified copy of the 1966 voters’ list and was seeking to connect the names therein to his purported father and grandfather, which the court found prima facie untenable in view of the other documentary material on record.
A central theme in the High Court’s judgment was that oral evidence alone, without credible documentary linkage, is not substantive proof of citizenship. The court observed that the Tribunal was entitled to reject the petitioner’s case when he failed to establish the indispensable linkage between himself and his alleged Indian ancestors through admissible and corroborative documents. The High Court reiterated that in proceedings under the Foreigners Act and before a Foreigners’ Tribunal, merely producing oral testimony or unsupported affidavits is insufficient to satisfy the stringent burden of proof placed upon a person seeking to establish Indian citizenship. It emphasized that documentary evidence must be admissible and demonstrably linked to the individual’s claimed lineage for the purposes of proving citizenship, and that testimonial assertions without such linkage cannot be accepted as conclusive.
The High Court also underlined the established legal principle that when a person challenges a Foreigners’ Tribunal’s opinion in a writ petition, the court’s review is confined to examining whether there is any perversity, illegality, or error on the face of the record in the Tribunal’s assessment. The judges found no such error in the impugned opinion. Thus, having regard to the lack of cogent connection between the petitioner and his projected ancestors, the internal inconsistencies in the documentary material, and the absence of admissible evidence establishing citizenship by birth, the High Court concluded that the Tribunal’s opinion did not warrant interference. Consequently, the High Court dismissed the writ petition, thereby upholding the Tribunal’s finding that the petitioner had miserably failed to prove that he was a citizen of India and had not been born to bona fide Indian citizens.
In delivering its judgment, the court clarified that its examination of the consolidated National Register of Citizens list and other documents was confined to the unique facts of the petitioner’s case and was not intended to establish a broader precedent for categorization of evidence in other matters. Nonetheless, by affirming the requirement that oral evidence without documentary support cannot constitute substantive proof of citizenship, the judgment reinforced the stringent evidentiary standards applicable in citizenship disputes adjudicated under the Foreigners Act. Ultimately, the High Court’s decision signified that where a petition fails to demonstrate necessary documentary linkage to establish lineage and citizenship, courts will not disturb the reasoned opinion of a Foreigners’ Tribunal that such burden has not been discharged.
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