The Supreme Court on Monday set aside Gauhati High Court judgements that had declared 27 persons to be foreigners, Live Law reported.

Remanding the cases to foreigners tribunals for fresh adjudication, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta held that determining citizenship and foreigner status carries a “high field of constitutional significance” and must be decided through a “fair, lawful and reasonable” process.

The foreigners tribunals in Assam are quasi-judicial bodies that adjudicate on matters of citizenship based on lineage and a 1971 cut-off date. They rely primarily on documents submitted by persons to establish their family’s residency in Assam or India before 1971.

Those declared foreigners by the tribunals have the option to appeal the decision before the High Court or the Supreme Court.

Foreigners’ tribunals have been accused of arbitrariness and bias, and declaring persons foreigners on the basis of minor spelling mistakes, a lack of documents or lapses in memory.

In the lead case in the batch of petitions heard by the Supreme Court, the Gauhati High Court had dismissed the challenge to a foreigners tribunal order declaring the petitioners to be foreigners, reported Live Law.

The High Court had also noted that none of the appellants had challenged the tribunal’s order for nearly 23 years. While acknowledging that they should be given a fair opportunity to establish their Indian citizenship, it said that such an opportunity could not be “enlarged into an endless exercise”, the legal news outlet reported.

On Monday, without commenting on the merits of the appellants’ claims, the Supreme Court said that the government’s objectives of preventing illegal immigration cannot “come at the cost of procedural fairness”.

In view of this, the bench set aside the Gauhati High Court judgements and the corresponding opinions and orders passed by the foreigners tribunals, reported Live Law.

“The concerned tribunals shall decide the cases afresh and uninfluenced by any of the observations made by the High Court or by the tribunals in the earlier opinions,” said the bench.

Edited by Sara Varghese.

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