Despite her special leave petition being pending before the Supreme Court, she was deported to Bangladesh from the Matila transit camp on December 19.
A 44-year-old widow from Assam, recently deported to Bangladesh, has approached the Supreme Court claiming she was incorrectly declared an illegal migrant even though all 16 members of her family are included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The court has ordered officials to verify the documents submitted on her behalf.
Aheda Khatun, born in Assam in 1981, was detained on September 30 after the Gauhati high court dismissed her challenge to a 2019 Foreigners Tribunal order.
Despite her special leave petition being pending before the Supreme Court, she was deported to Bangladesh from the Matila transit camp on December 19, her lawyer Adeel Ahmed informed the Bench.
Khatun contended that she is an Indian citizen by birth under Section 3(1)(a) of the Citizenship Act, as her parents had been enrolled as voters for decades.
Her petition pointed out that the NRC list shows her father, mother and fourteen siblings as 'accepted' citizens, while she alone was marked DV (doubtful voter) solely because her case before the Foreigners Tribunal was pending at the time.
'This creates an overwhelming prima facie case of Indian citizenship,' the petition stated.
The Foreigners Tribunal had declared her a foreigner in September 2019 for failing to prove her lineage conclusively.
After a delay of over five years, she moved the Gauhati high court, which dismissed her plea on grounds of delay without examining the merits. She was detained soon after.
Challenging the high court's decision, Khatun argued that it was unjust to reject her plea on procedural delay when she had produced substantial documentary evidence.
Noting that her brother has filed an affidavit on her behalf, the Supreme Court issued notice 'for the limited purpose of enquiring into the genuineness of the documents relied upon by the petitioner's brother.'
Her petition alleged that the Foreigners Tribunal misapplied Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, by placing an 'insurmountable and legally impermissible burden' on her despite the absence of any contradictory evidence from the State.
She submitted nine documents to establish her Indian lineage -- four voter lists from 1965, 1970, 1985 and 1997, along with Jamabandi records, a mutation order, a registered gift deed, a school certificate and a Gaonburah certificate.
These, she argued, are statutory and certified public documents that the tribunal could not have discarded 'on surmises and conjectures.'
The Supreme Court will now examine the authenticity of the documents as it takes up the case of a woman who insists she is Indian -- while she remains stranded across the border.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
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