Gauhati HC pulls up Assam govt over poor record-keeping in Foreigners Tribunals
The court directed the government to consider training of FT members after it observed haphazard record-keeping;
A file image of Gauhati High Court (AT Photo)
Guwahati, June 24: The Gauhati High Court has directed the State government to consider a training programme on maintaining records for the members and superintendents of Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) in the State.
The direction came after a division bench observed haphazard manner of record-keeping by the Tribunal, while hearing an appeal filed by petitioner Gobinda Saha, who has been declared a foreigner by the Nagaon Foreigners Tribunal.
“The records are so haphazardly maintained by the learned Tribunal that it took more than two hours for the court, assisted by the private secretaries, to trace-out the exhibited documents after comparing every exhibited document with the contents of the evidence-on-affidavit of defence witnesses and cross-examination of defence witnesses,” a division of the HC comprising Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Malasri Nandi said.
“The process of locating order-sheets, pleadings, evidence, and documents, and comparing it with the contents of evidence-on-affidavit has consumed a lot of time, which has compelled the court to leave it to the authorities in the Home and Political (B) Department, as to whether the State would consider formal training to the members and superintendents of Foreigners Tribunals from the Judicial Academy, Assam and/or North-East Judicial Officers Training Institute, Guwahati on how to maintain case record.”
The HC said that the discrepancies in the marking of exhibits are found to have ‘seriously vitiated the impugned opinion, as the resultant appreciation of the evidence of the DWs is also found to be vitiated by total non-application of judicial mind’.
Setting aside the Foreigners Tribunal opinion, the HC remanded back the matter back to the Tribunal for a fresh decision ‘in accordance with law’.
- By Staff Reporter