19 May 2025 Criminal Appeals & Suspension of Sentence >> Criminal Law  

This appeal of Rofiqul Hoque v/s The Union of India & Others., addresses the case of an individual (appellant) declared a foreigner by the Foreigners Tribunal, Jorhat, Assam, in 2017. This declaration was upheld by the Guwahati High Court in the same year. The appellant subsequently challenged these decisions, arguing that his inclusion in the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2018 should invalidate the earlier findings.

The core of the case revolves around whether the appellant successfully demonstrated his Indian citizenship. The appellant claimed ancestry through his grandfather, Joynal Abdin Seikh, and provided various voter lists from 1966 to 2016, along with a duplicate school leaving certificate, as proof.

Both the Tribunal and the High Court meticulously examined these documents and found significant discrepancies:

• The school leaving certificate was deemed unreliable due to being a duplicate issued years after the appellant left school, without proper proof of the original's loss or the headmaster's testimony.
• Voter lists presented inconsistencies in ages and, crucially, differences in the declared village of residence for the appellant's grandfather (Daobhangi vs. Kekurchar) without any explanation for a shift in domicile. The appellant's mother's name was also absent in a key 1993 voter list.
• The overall narrative presented by the appellant was found to suffer from "multiple material contradictions and omissions, rendering the same not only suspicious but highly improbable."

The courts emphasized that under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, the burden of proof to establish citizenship lies with the individual. Given the discrepancies, the Tribunal and High Court concluded that the appellant failed to discharge this burden.

Regarding the appellant's inclusion in the draft NRC, the court referred to Rule 4A of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, and a previous Supreme Court judgment in Abdul Kuddus v. Union of India. This established that:

1. Individuals declared illegal migrants or foreigners by a competent authority (like the Foreigners Tribunal) cannot be included in the consolidated NRC list.
2. Even if a name is included in the draft NRC, it does not annul or efface a prior declaration of an individual as a foreigner by a quasi-judicial body like the Tribunal. The Tribunal's decision can only be overturned by a superior court.

Therefore, the court concluded that the appellant's inclusion in the draft NRC had no bearing on the prior declaration that he was a foreigner. As a result, the appeal was dismissed, the interim release order was discharged, and the appellant will continue to be treated as a foreigner.

Section 9, Foreigners Act - 1946  

Foreigners Act, 1946