Even citizenship issues are being raised in many parts of the country, a new report raises questions on the legal process by foreigners (FTS) and Gauhati High Court in declaring 1.6 lakh people as “foreigners” in Assam.According to the report, citizenship was rejected on the basis of minor spelling errors and confusion between respectable titles and real names, while reliable oral testimony was rejected. The conclusions were based on more than 1,200 Gauhati HC orders, major decisions of the Supreme Court, order of FTS and analysis of extensive interviews with lawyers and cases. In quoted cases: Rehman Ali, a resident of Barpeta, presented documents for citizenship in 2012, listed his father’s name as Khurshed Ali. His claim was rejected with the authorities a year later that it was an discrepancy as his father’s name was registered in the 1965 and 1970 voter rolls as Fursed Ali, even though it was correctly registered as a rough in 1989, 1997 and 2010.The testimony of Mahajan Nessa’s uncle was rejected in 2019 as he was unaware that his father bought land in Gobardhana village in Baksa district, which is irrelevant to his citizenship situation.Ibrahim Ali’s petition was denied as his father’s name appeared for ‘Late Nurul’ in 1989 voter role and ‘Nurul Islam’ in 1965 and 1970 voter roles for Toktoki village in Nagaon district.In addition to such rejection, there are more than 85,000 pending cases. FTS is expected to hear one lakh appeals from those who were out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The Reports of Architecture and Expels in ‘Anmacking Citizens: The Architecture of Rights violations and exclusive citizenship tests by the National Law School of India University and Queen Mary University of London are described as “Burning Crisis”. This argues that FTS – regular tools of exclusion instead of faulty exceptions.This report comes at a time when Parliament has implemented the new immigration and foreigners Act, 2025. In this context, the report asks for an essential, fundamental reconsideration of the legal structures that control citizenship in India, calling the current system not only broken, but actively unjust.Mohsin Alam Bhat, professor and co-author of the law at Queen Mary University, says, “Even though the citizenship verification process has been done under the cover of the law and sometimes under the supervision of the court, our report shows that it fails to align with the main constitutional and legal principles,” Queen Mary’s Professor and Report in Queen Mary University fails. “People are asked to produce improper documentation. W much worse, the system is designed to reject documentary and oral evidence that they manage to provide.,The report said that some reasons for denying citizenship are against the inhabited law. For example, FTS and Gauhati HC regularly dismissed important official documents, such as gram panchayat certificates and voter rolls, on minor formatting defects, discrepancies in ink color, or absence of details such as specific government headers. A mild change in a person’s name, title or age became the basis for refusal, even if such anomalies are common in rural records. Even when testifying to a person’s citizenship or family relations, including family members with family with direct knowledge, family members, their statements were often rejected just because they could not remember the details like that exact year, such as a family had gone to the date of a village, marriage date, or date of birth.Additionally, FTS and HC regularly dismissed the documents since 1971 as “irrelevant” or “not proof of citizenship”. This caused documents such as Aadhaar, PAN card and ration cards, which could have been constantly residence or family relations, which could be briefly rejected.Another challenge is a constant weakening qualification for FT members. In 2011, only retired officers of judicial service were eligible. By 2015, advocates who had 10 years of experience could have been appointed. In 2019, it was widespread to include civil servants and lawyers with only seven years of experience.The report argued that the courts have not treated these procedural violations as law errors are serious to invalve FT proceedings. Says Bhat, “The High Court has adopted the same narrow approach to evidence as a tribunal, testifying and rejecting testimony and documents for minor, technical discrepancies, which they would need to practice clearly, as they consider in a totality, as they would have settled in tumpered.”
