Foreigners Tribunal findings stand where the claimant fails to prove linkage with pre-1971 ancestors.

The petitioner challenged the opinion dated 26 April 2018 of the Foreigners Tribunal, Kamrup (Rural) No. 1, Guwahati, in GFT(R) Case No. 1436/2017, whereby he was declared a foreigner who had entered Assam on or after 25 March 1971.

He claimed to be an Indian citizen born on 10 March 1970 at Hatipara, Assam, and sought to establish his citizenship through the electoral rolls of 1966, 1970, 1977, 1985, 1993, 2005, 2010 and 2017, along with his father’s EPIC, his PAN card, bank passbook, Gaonburah certificates and a name-correction affidavit.

The petitioner examined himself, his projected father Hasem Ali, and the Gaonburahs of Hatipara and Merganda.

His case was that the family had shifted from Hatipara to Barbhitha after 1977 and thereafter to Merganda due to river erosion and other circumstances.

The Tribunal rejected the documents and oral evidence, holding that the petitioner had failed to prove his linkage with the persons shown in the pre-1971 electoral rolls, particularly because the family members’ names were not consistently reflected in subsequent electoral rolls.

The High Court examined the Tribunal record in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution.

1. Whether the petitioner had produced reliable and admissible evidence establishing his linkage with his projected grandfather and father whose names appeared in the 1966 and 1970 electoral rolls, thereby proving that he was an Indian citizen and not a post-25 March 1971 foreigner.

2. Whether the Foreigners Tribunal’s opinion declaring the petitioner to be a foreigner suffered from perversity, jurisdictional error or an error apparent on the face of the record warranting interference under Article 226 of the Constitution.

The High Court applied the limited scope of judicial review under Article 226 in certiorari proceedings: the writ court does not act as an appellate or revisional court, reweigh evidence, or substitute its own view for that of the inferior tribunal; interference is justified where the order is without jurisdiction or contains a patent error of law.

Relying on Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences v. Bikartan Das, (2023) 16 SCC 462, the Court reiterated that certiorari is not available merely because another view of the evidence is possible, although the writ court retains discretionary power to mould relief in the interests of substantial justice.

The Court further applied the evidentiary principle that merely exhibiting a document does not prove the truth of its contents, as stated in LIC of India v. Ram Pal Singh Bisen, (2010) 4 SCC 491.

The Court also relied on Sudha Devi v. M.P. Narayanan, (1988) 3 SCC 366, as followed in Jan Nessa v. Union of India, 2018 (5) GLT 499, for the rule that a suo motu self-serving affidavit is not evidence unless admitted in accordance with law.

The Court held that a Gaonburah’s certificate or oral assertion could not, by itself, establish citizenship, particularly as the applicable executive instructions did not impose on a Gaonburah a duty to maintain population or birth-and-death registers.

Post-reference documents such as a bank passbook, PAN card and EPIC were treated as insufficient, without supporting evidence, to prove citizenship.

The Court held that the petitioner failed to establish a credible documentary and familial link with the pre-1971 voters shown in the 1966 and 1970 electoral rolls.

Although several electoral rolls were exhibited, the petitioner did not adequately prove that the persons named therein were his projected ancestors or that the entire family had shifted together from Hatipara to Barbhitha and then to Merganda.

The Court noted that the petitioner’s account was inconsistent with his projected father’s statement that he had shifted to Merganda approximately 40 years earlier, which suggested a different timeline from the petitioner’s pleadings.

The evidence of the Hatipara Gaonburah was also inconsistent with the petitioner’s and his projected father’s evidence concerning the family’s place of residence and the electoral rolls of 2005 and 2010.

The Court further found that the Gaonburah certificates could not independently prove the petitioner’s birth or citizenship, and that the bank passbook was a post-reference document containing information supplied by the petitioner himself.

The name-correction affidavit was self-serving and lacked independent evidentiary value.

Since the Tribunal had considered the evidence and its conclusion was not shown to be perverse, without jurisdiction, or based on an apparent error of law, the High Court declined to reassess the evidence in certiorari jurisdiction.

It held that Saheb Ali had failed to prove his linkage with the pre-1971 voters and had not established that he was an Indian citizen.

The Tribunal’s opinion dated 26 April 2018 declaring him a foreigner who entered Assam on or after 25 March 1971 was found free from jurisdictional error or perversity.

The writ petition was accordingly dismissed, the consequences of the Tribunal’s opinion were directed to follow, and the parties were left to bear their own costs.