Photo Courtesy: India Today Group
Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court just slammed the door on using routine identification as proof of citizenship. A division bench of Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Susmita Phukan Khaund ruled that a PAN card and an Electoral Photo Identity Card cannot confirm Indian nationality on their own. These records lack the depth required for citizenship verification.
The court upheld a 2018 Foreigners Tribunal order declaring Kulchan Begum, an Assam resident from Darrang district, a foreigner. Begum failed to prove her identity. She relied on a pile of papers including her father's PAN card, her own voter ID, a ration card, and various electoral rolls. None of it held up under judicial scrutiny.
"The PAN card and EPIC exhibited by the petitioner are not proof of citizenship. These are documents that are issued upon self-application without any formal enquiry by the Income Tax Department and Election Commission of India," the court noted in its November 5 judgment. Judges determined these documents are useless without the original records used to issue them.
Begum claimed she was born on April 25, 1977. She pointed to a political lineage, noting her father contested the 2009 Lok Sabha election from Barpeta and the 2011 Assam Assembly election from Baghbar. He even served as a Guwahati Municipal Corporation councillor in 2013. The court remained unmoved. It ruled that political success does not verify a specific family relationship.
Evidence gaps proved fatal to her case. The court flagged inconsistencies in age records and a 27-year blank space regarding the family's residence in Assam between 1970 and 1997. She could not prove her father's name appeared in records before 1997. An Area Sabha certificate was deemed hearsay because the author never testified. Her NRC application acknowledgement was also dismissed.
The legal fight started in 2000 under the Illegal Migrants Act. The case moved to the Foreigners Tribunal after the Supreme Court scrapped that law in 2005. Following the dismissal of her petition, the court revoked the interim bail granted to Begum on April 18, 2022. The burden remains on the individual to prove citizenship under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946.
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