Gurkhas are not to be tagged as foreigners
- Posted By
10Pointer
- Categories
Polity & Governance
- Published
19th Aug, 2021
-
Context
The Assam government’s Political Department issued a notification ordering the State police’s Border wing not to forward any case against Gurkhas to the Foreigners Tribunals under the Foreigners Act of 1946.
What are Foreigners' tribunals?
- Foreigners’ Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies.
- Only Foreigners Tribunals are empowered to declare a person as a foreigner.
- It is for those who have been left out in the final NRC list or have been marked as ‘D’ meaning ‘doubtful’.
- The ones falling under this category have the right to appeal to the Foreigners’ Tribunal.
Working of foreigner’ tribunals
- In 1964, the Centre passed the Foreigners’ (Tribunals) Order under provisions of Section 3 of the Act.
- The Foreigners’ Tribunals Works to find out whether a person is or is not a foreigner within the meaning of Foreigners Act, 1946”.
- The FTs get two kinds of cases: those against whom a “reference” has been made by border police, and those whose names in the electoral rolls have Doubtful against them.
Census 2011 data on Gurkhas
- Assam has more than 5 lakh Gurkhas.
- Most of them came as members of armed forces under the British administration.
- 22,000 Gurkhas were left out of the draft National Register of Citizens(NRC).
|
Decision taken by Government
- The government has decided to stop marking members of the Gorkha community as suspected foreigners and referring them to foreigners tribunals.
- The community from being tagged as non-citizens and tried in the tribunals for ascertaining their citizenship or detaining and deporting them.
- The Border wing is tasked with identifying people of doubtful citizenship and serving them notices for a Foreigners’ Tribunal.
