The Hindu

16,Jul,2026



The Supreme Court on Monday held that the determination of citizenship and foreigner status must be undertaken through a “fair, lawful, and reasoned” process, as it set aside a batch of 27 Gauhati High Court judgments declaring the appellants to be foreigners, and remanded the cases to the Foreigners’ Tribunals concerned for fresh adjudication.

A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta observed that while the state has a legitimate interest in ensuring that persons who are legally ineligible for an Indian citizenship do not obtain such a status through “false claims”, the “grave consequence” of being declared a foreigner must follow a procedure that adheres to constitutional guarantees.

Fair opportunity

“A state action which is arbitrary cannot claim the protection of law merely because it is clothed in statutory form. A proceeding which may result in a person being declared a foreigner cannot be sustained if the procedure adopted is mechanical, one-sided, or devoid of application of mind,” the judgment, authored by Justice Nath, said. The Tribunal must examine whether the person had a “fair opportunity, whether the main grounds were disclosed, whether the evidence before it was capable of supporting the reference, and whether the conclusion follows from the material on record,” it added.

The HC had dismissed the appeals against the orders of the Foreigners’ Tribunals declaring the appellants to be foreigners after noting that none of them had appeared before the tribunals despite having been served notices. It had observed that, in the absence of any written statement, documents, or evidence from the appellants, the tribunals had “no option” but to affirm the references.

The top court, however, clarified that the remand should not be construed as an affirmation of the appellants’ claim to Indian citizenship.

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