NRC is final, rules Assam Foreigners’ Tribunal

At a time when the Assam government has directed Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) to refrain from passing any “consequential orders on a person’s nationality”, an FT recorded the NRC as the “final NRC” while declaring a man to be Indian. Hearing a case against one Bikram Singha of Jamirala village whose name figured in the NRC list, member of FT-II in Karimganj town Sishir Dey said, “...there is no doubt that this NRC Assam published in 2019 is nothing but Final NRC..”. The Foreigners’ Tribunals, set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1964, are quasi-judicial bodies that adjudicate citizenship in Assam. FTs are the last recourse for the 19 lakh people whose names were dropped from the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the final list of which was published on August 31, 2019.