Guwahati, March 21: Gauhati High Court has dismissed three separate writ petitions challenging orders passed by foreigners’ tribunals declaring the petitioners illegal migrants.

Justice Biplab Kumar Sharma yesterday dismissed the petitions after finding no merit in the petitioners’ arguments.

The three petitions were WP(C) number 5725/2010 filed by Md Hasmat Ali of Garubandha village in Morigaon district, WP(C) number 6167/2010 filed by Md Gul alias Gol Mahmmad of Jagiroad in Morigaon district and WP(C) number 3231/2011 filed by Md Jiban Uddin Ahmed alias Gibanuddin of Jalukbari in Kamrup (metro) district.

While through the first two writ petitions the petitioners had challenged the orders passed by the foreigners’ tribunal in Morigaon, the other petition challenged an order passed by the Kamrup (metro) foreigners’ tribunal, declaring them illegal migrants.

“The cut-off date being March 25, 1971, the persons suspected to be foreign nationals (Bangladeshi nationals) will have to establish their link to the period prior to the said cut off date, which the petitioner failed to do,” Justice Sharma said in his order in connection with Hasmat Ali’s petition.

“Because of the wide variation in the documents vis-à-vis the reference made against the petitioner, the Tribunal declined to believe the story of the petitioner,” the order said.

Similarly, in connection with Md Gul’s petition, the high court observed that the tribunal, on perusal of the relevant materials, including the verification reports relating to the case, found that the petitioner was an illegal Bangladeshi migrant who entered Assam after the cut-off date.

“The tribunal has rightly come to the conclusion that the petitioner is not an Indian citizen and had illegally migrated to Assam after the said cut-off date,” the high court ruled.

Jiban Uddin Ahmed had stated in his petition that he had appeared before the tribunal only on first date after which he was absent, as he was ignorant about the laws.

Justice Sharma said the plea of the petitioner was not at all tenable. “Needless to say that ignorance of law is not an excuse. If this excuse is allowed, all the foreign nationals whose presence in Assam is in huge numbers, would take the same plea and none of them would be declared foreign nationals,” he added.

“Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, casts a burden of proof on the person concerned. The petitioner, having failed to discharge the said burden, cannot fall back on the plea of ignorance in law. Thus, it cannot be said that the ex parte proceedings against the petitioner were unjust and resultantly, the impugned order also cannot be said to be illegal,” he said.

According to an official source, around 70 persons who had been declared illegal migrants had filed petitions in Gauhati High Court challenging the tribunals’ orders.

He said the state’s foreigners’ tribunals had disposed of 83,471 cases till March 2011, declaring 5,577 foreigners.

The remaining 41,028 persons were found to be Indian citizens, following which the “D” (doubtful voter) mark against their names in the electoral rolls would be removed and they would get back their voting rights.