New members appointed to Assam’s Foreigners? Tribunals

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.