Kolkata: Calcutta High Court on Monday asked whether the officer in charge of Chhattisgarh’s Foreigners Registration Office (FRO), who is also the superintendent of Bilaspur police, can “simultaneously decide” on the citizenship of people whose SIR appeals are pending before the appellate tribunal set up following a Supreme Court order.
Terming FRO’s move “contradictory”, the judge said, “If your authority is telling that he is not an Indian, so what will the appellate authority do? The judge also questioned how FRO could decide the citizenship of the detainees when the tribunal was “actively hearing” their appeals. “Tell me one thing, what is the duty of an appellate tribunal? What is the duty of your authorities? If your authorities are simultaneously deciding it, then I will pass an order referring the matter to Supreme Court. The authority is deciding all the nationality… Why are you doing this? Justice Rao asked while hearing a petition filed by Mostakim Sheikh, a resident of Hiranandapur village in Murshidabad’s Samserganj and neighbour of all four detainees, seeking an order for expeditious hearing of their appeals by the appellate tribunal. You are playing with people? The tribunal, Justice Rao stressed, was set up based on an SC order for people stripped of their voting right during the SIR to file appeals. “This is the way of administration of the Union of India in West Bengal. That is the question,” the judge observed.
Once you find that the petitioner has preferred an appeal before the appellate tribunal, what would be the effect of the appeal if you are deciding the citizenship simultaneously.
The court asked the petitioner’s counsel, Raghunath Chakraborty, to make FRO a party and sought a report from the office on Oct 8, when the case will be heard again. In his order passed on Monday, the judge noted that FRO was not made a party to the case though Election Commission ’s counsel Anamika Pandey had submitted that the four had been detained by the office.