GUWAHATI, Nov 22 - Though Assam Government has renewed the term of the services of the members appointed for the proposed Foreigners� Tribunals by one more year, no decision has been taken on making the tribunals operational.
Assam Government had decided to set up 200 new Foreigners� Tribunals and members for the same were selected by the Gauhati High Court. The members were appointed on contract basis for a period of one year and their services have been extended for another year recently. But it is still not decided when the new tribunals would be made operational.
Official sources told The Assam Tribune that no decision has yet been taken as to when the other staff selected for appointment in the new tribunals would be appointed. Sources said that the decision to set up new tribunals was taken in view of the fact that the persons, whose names were left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), would file appeals before the Foreigners Tribunals. But such people can file appeals only after they receive the rejection slips from the office of the State NRC Coordinator with details of the causes of rejection. But as the rejection slips have not yet been issued, the Government has postponed the process of making the tribunals operational. �The Government is ready to make the new tribunals operational as soon as the NRC Coordinator�s Office starts issuing rejection slips to those whose names were not included in the NRC. But there is no point in incurring extra expenditure till the rejection slips are issued,� sources added.
The final NRC was published more than a year back and names of more than 19 lakh applicants were not included in it. But the process of issuing rejection slips was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the date for issuing the same has not yet been announced.
Sources said that the decision to extend the services of the members appointed for the new tribunals for another year was taken because it would be difficult to go through the selection process afresh once the NRC Coordinator�s Office starts issuing the rejection slips.
The members appointed for the new tribunals are now attached with the existing tribunals so that they can gather adequate experience.
It may be mentioned here that the State Government is not satisfied with the final NRC and approached the Supreme Court with the appeal that there should be 20 per cent re-verification in the districts bordering Bangladesh and 10 per cent in other districts. The All Assam Students� Union (AASU) has also called for re-verification of the NRC , but the decision of the Court is awaited.
