221 members selected for Assam Foreigners’ Tribunals; 50 others put on waiting list

The Gauhati High Court on Monday selected 221 members for appointment to the existing 100 and 200 upcoming Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) in Assam. Another 50 applicants have been put on the waiting list. Assam has 100 Foreigners' Tribunals, each one headed by a judge-like member.

Assam: Days ahead of the publication of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC), the Gauhati High Court on Monday issued a notification announcing a list of 221 people selected for appointment as members at the existing and 200 soon-to-be-opened Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) in the state to deal with the citizenship status of those excluded from the highly-contentious NRC.

Nearly 50 other applicants have also been put on the waiting list, who may or may not be appointed as FT members.

“The panel of selected candidates is prepared from the retired judicial officers, advocates, and retired civil servants for appointment in order of merit. A panel of 50 waiting list candidates is also prepared and published," read the notification.

The Gauhati High Court only interviews the candidates for selection as FT members, while the appointments are made by the Home and Political Department.

The selection panel members comprised of retired judicial officers, advocates and civil servants.

The list had been prepared and published less than a fortnight before the completion of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) on August 31.

Assam at present has 100 Foreigners' Tribunal.

According to Home Department, there were initially 11 Illegal Migrant Determination Tribunals (IMDT). These were converted to FTs after the Supreme Court scrapped the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983.

The government established another 21 FTs in 1983. Four more were added in 2009 and the remaining 64 established in 2014 for disposal of cases that were piling up in the FTs.

The government would establish 200 FTs primarily for handling cases of people to be excluded from the final NRC. These would be in addition to the existing 100 and are part of the 1,000 that the Centre had decided to help Assam set up in view of the pressure envisaged to dispose of cases of people to be left out of the NRC.