The Gauhati High Court has imposed a fine of ₹10,000 on an electoral registration officer (ERO) of Assam’s Dispur Assembly constituency for referring a retired Gurkha soldier to the Foreigners’ Tribunal.
Jagat Bahadur Chetri, who retired from the Indian Army in 2005 after 38 years of serving at the field ammunition depot of a major cantonment in the northeast, was marked a ‘D-voter’ in the electoral rolls in 1997. D stands for doubtful.
During the revision of the electoral rolls a few months ago, the Dispur ERO had referred the 85-year-old Army veteran to the Foreigners’ Tribunal or FT concerned. An FT, specific to Assam, is a quasi-judicial centre that tries people of doubtful citizenship to be declared Indians or foreigners based on documents presented.
ADVERTISEMENT
Hearing Mr. Chetri’s case on February 20, the division Bench of Justice Achintya Malla Bujor Barua and Justice Robin Phukan observed that the ERO’s order of reference made it evident that the retired soldier was born in eastern Assam’s Dibrugarh in 1937. He later settled in the Dispur area of Guwahati.
“If… there is no material that subsequent to his birth, he migrated to the specified territory (Bangladesh, as defined in the Assam Accord of 1985) and thereafter re-entered the State of Assam subsequent to 25th March 1971, we are of the view that it was an absolute non-application of mind on the part of the ERO of 52 Dispur Legislative Assembly constituency to have referred the petitioner to the Foreigners Tribunal for an opinion,” the court’s order said.
Mr. Chetri said he was pained by the ordeal. “Being referred to an FT is an insult to my Gurkha ethnicity and also to the country’s armed forces. I was born as an Indian and glad that I will die as an Indian,” he said.
The Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh (BGP), the apex national body of the community that handled the cases of Gurkhas left out of Assam’s updated National Register of Citizens and those marked D-voters, welcomed the high court’s judgment.
“The fine of ₹10,000 for causing psychological harm to a bonafide citizen should not only act as a deterrent for all officers of the Election Commission of India in the case of Gurkhas but also educate police officers of Border branch not to be casual in questioning the citizenship of the members of the community,” BGP’s Assam unit president Prakash Dahal said.
The Border unit of the Assam police is tasked with identifying people of doubtful citizens and referring them to an FT.
“Jagat Bahadur Chetri’s is not the only case against genuine Indian Gurkhas. Therefore, we urge the Election Commission to remove the tag of D-voters from the heads of Gurkhas in Assam,” Mr. Dahal said.
ADVERTISEMENT