The Gauhati High Court has affirmed an order declaring an Assam man a foreigner of the post-March 25, 1971 category, ruling that continuous domestic residence is an indispensable condition for proving Indian citizenship.
A division bench comprising Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Susmita Phukan Khaund dismissed the man’s writ petition challenging a September 2018 Foreigners Tribunal decision, while also revoking the bail previously granted to him. The court held that the petitioner failed to prove his lineage to his father and grandfather due to wide gaps and inconsistencies in electoral documentation.
Electoral Discrepancies And Two-Decade Documentation Gap
Delivering the judgment on October 8, the bench highlighted an unexplained 20-year hiatus between the 1977 and 1997 electoral rolls. The court noted that the petitioner entered voter rolls for the first time in 1997 at the age of 26, five years after attaining the voting age of 21.
The judges observed that the voter lists submitted pertained to multiple villages and contained conflicting personal details. In the 1966 electoral records, the petitioner’s father was identified as Kurfan Ali and his grandfather as Jan Mamud. Subsequent voter lists recorded the names as Kurpan Ali and Janu Miya.
The bench agreed with the tribunal’s assessment that the 1977 electoral records appeared to describe an unrelated family, stating that such an extensive gap in the grandfather’s residential trail since 1966 could not be disregarded.
The court further noted that the petitioner did not disclose his date of birth, place of birth, or the names of his mother and siblings. The 2018 tribunal had also recorded that the man omitted the birthplace of his grandparents and the names of his grandfather’s siblings.
Displacement Claims And Arguments Before The Court
The petitioner, represented by advocate N Uddin, argued that public records had been improperly discounted by the tribunal. Counsel contended that the 1970 voter list documented both the parents and grandparents, thereby establishing a legal link. The defense also pointed to oral testimony from the petitioner’s father, asserting that the father’s Indian citizenship corroborated the son’s status.
To explain the jurisdictional changes across voter rolls, the petitioner stated that his family experienced multiple displacements due to river erosion along the Brahmaputra. According to his plea, he was born in Niz-Paruwa village before riverbank collapse forced the family to move to Champupara Pathar. They shifted to Ujan Duramari after 1970, and relocated again after 1997 from Duramari (Dighalchura) to Bhitar Duwar, where they currently reside.
Opposing the plea, government standing counsel G Sharma submitted that oral statements from the petitioner’s father lacked corroborating documentary backing and could not establish citizenship. The state maintained that the petitioner failed to prove a verifiable ancestral link between his father and grandfather.
The High Court accepted the state’s contention, ruling that even if river erosion prompted relocations across three different villages, the documentary evidence still failed to bridge the gaps or substantiate his lineage to his claimed parents and grandparents.
