To assess the nationality of the people who have been disqualified in the NRC procedure, the Government has established foreigner’s tribunals in the state of Assam.
What are the Foreigners’ Tribunals?
- The Foreigner Tribunals have been set up to provide a legal concourse for the people who have been disqualified in the NRC process.
- A total of 100 Foreign Tribunals have been set-up in Assam and each tribunal is headed by a judge-like member.
- The members are appointed under the FT Act, 1941, and FT Order, 1984. The guidelines issued by the government vary from time to time.
- In the latest move, the Gauhati High Court has appointed a total of? 221 members to be part of the existing and upcoming Foreigners? Tribunals in Assam.
- A further 50 aspirants have been put on a waitlist.
- While the FTs were initially known as Illegal Migrant Determination Tribunals (IMDT), they were converted to FTs when the Supreme Court scrapped the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983.
- Currently, the government has plans to establish over 200 FTs which would mainly handle cases of people which would be excluded from the final NRC.
- The tribunals will also deal with the instances of D-voters and comment on their sanctity.
What are D-voters?
The ?D-voters? holds for doubtful or dubious voter. This belongs to a category of people who have been disenfranchised by the government in part due to their lack of proper citizenship documents.