The Gauhati High Court granted relief to an Assam resident while setting aside an ex parte order which had declared his mother a foreigner. The bench of Justice Achintya Malla Bujor Barua and Justice Robin Phukan observed that the ex parte order was passed against petitioner’s mother after she was deceased and hence was unsustainable in law. The case also exposed anomalies in the system of serving notices, whereby the mother’s signature was said to have been taken on the notice in 1997 while she had already passed in 1991. The court held the petitioner’s legal rights as a citizen cannot be brought into question based on the ex parte order passed against his mother.

An ex parte order was passed by Foreigners Tribunal, Dhubri, Kokrajhar and Goalpara on September 25, 1997 by which the petitioner, Tarapada Namadas’s mother Sorojoni Sarkar was declared to be a foreigner who entered the State of Assam between 1966 and 1971.

The petitioner submitted a voters' list of 1966 of Barpeta which contained his father and mother’s names , along with his own. He contended that because of the ex parte order against his mother, his citizenship was put to question.

The court noted that Sorojini died in 1991 and yet there is a report by the Process Server containing the signature as well as the left thumb impression of Sorojoni Das in the year 1997. The court thus deemed that the server’s report to be frivolous and held that the notice was not appropriately served. The court also noted that when the ex parte order was passed, Sorojini was deceased and hence the order is unsustainable in law.

The court, however, stated that the question whether Sorojoni Sarkar, wife of Brajabasi Sarkar and Sorojoni Namadas, wife of Brajabasi Namadas are one and the same person remains. Yet, it stated that the ex parte order in favour of Sorojini Namadas, who is the petitioner’s mother cannot be upheld.

“Accordingly, all legal rights of the petitioner as a citizen of India, without taking any recourse to an ex-parte opinion of a Foreigners Tribunal against his mother, would be available to the petitioner,” the order concludes.

The order may be read here:

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