From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: Given the huge volume of pending cases related to suspected illegal migrants, the Gauhati High Court in a verdict has asked the Assam government to set up more foreigners’ tribunals with better infrastructure to ensure speedy disposal of such cases.
A three-member Bench of the High Court comprising Justice BP Kotoky, Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice AK Goswami issued the directive to the State government while giving its verdict in a case related to illegal migrants issue.
The High Court in its verdict mentioned that the existing 36 foreigners tribunals in the State were not at all sufficient to handle pending 2,37,631 cases. The verdict states that it was the duty of the government to ensure disposal of such cases so that illegal migrants can be deported from the country at the earliest.
The High Court also expressed its surprise that the Central Government was yet to facilitate setting up of 64 additional foreigners’ tribunals in the State though the proposal was submitted by the Assam Government in September, 2012.
The court pointed out that given the huge volume of pending cases even the additional 64 tribunals will not be sufficient and the State government needed to set up more numbers of tribunals.
The court observed that the existing practice of issuing notice to suspected foreign nationals through local police is not effective enough and the tribunals should have officials to discharge the job.
Stating that presiding officers of many foreigners’ tribunals were not adequately trained to discharge their responsibility, the court asked the State Government to look into the matter and take remedial steps.
The High Court has further directed the State Government to set up a high-level selection committee to select members of foreigners’ tribunals. It further directed Assam to keep detected illegal migrants in detention camps till they are deported from the country.
Alleged illegal immigration from Bangladesh has been a major concern in Assam an dthreatened to drastically change the demography of the State.