The Supreme Court has sought the response of the Centre and the Assam government regarding a Muslim woman’s petition challenging a foreigners tribunal that had declared her an illegal migrant though her name had figured in the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) published on July 30, 2018.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna agreed to examine the validity of the order passed by the tribunal and upheld by Gauhati High Court.
The high court had also imposed a Rs 15,000 fine on the petitioner, Hameeda Begum or Harala Begum.
Senior advocate and former law minister Salman Khurshid appeared on behalf of the petitioner.
In her petition filed through advocate Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi, the petitioner has challenged the judgment passed by the high court on December 10 last year, upholding the order passed by the foreigners tribunal on July 25, 2018, at Nalbari, declaring her an illegal foreigner who entered India after March 25, 1971.
Hameeda pleaded that the high court dismissed her petition summarily without examining various documentary evidence produced by her, “…without even going into the merits of the case, completely oblivious that it was not just any writ petition but one dealing with the citizenship”.
The petitioner contended that the high court dismissed her plea though she had produced material to show that her name had been included in the final draft of the NRC, Assam, published in July last year.
According to Hameeda, who was born and brought up at Kandhmari village under Mukalmua police station in Assam’s Nalbari district, her name, along with her family, had been included in the final draft of the NRC.
Her father was late Darag Ali and her mother is Sahera Khatun.
It was submitted that the names of her parents had appeared in the voters’ list of 1966 and in 1971 as well.
“Apart from the above, the name of one of the ancestors of the petitioner, Nowab Ali, had also appeared in land revenue records of the year 1937, 1943 and 1962, leaving not even a trace of doubt as to her citizenship. After the cut-off date, March 25, 1971, the name of the petitioner’s parents have appeared in the voter list for 1985 and the name of the present petitioner herself has continuously appeared in various voter lists, including as recent as the voter list for 2018,” the petition stated.