The quasi-judicial Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) in Assam have become routine instruments of exclusion by disregarding due process and constitutional safeguards, a comprehensive study of these tribunals and the broader legal crisis of India’s citizenship adjudication has found.
The report by the Bengaluru-based National Law School of India University (NLSIU) and the Queen Mary University of London, to be formally released on Sunday (July 27, 2025), called for an urgent, fundamental rethinking of the legal structures governing citizenship in India given the possibility of an Assam-like exercise to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) across the country.
Titled ‘Unmaking Citizens: The Architecture of Rights Violations and Exclusion in India’s Citizenship Trials’, the report has been authored by Mohsin Alam Bhat of Queen Mary University, Arushi Gupta, and Shardul Gopujkar, with the support of researchers and law students from the NLSIU, and members of Parichay Legal Aid Clinic.
“As of 2025, Assam’s tribunals have declared nearly 166,000 people as ‘foreigners’. In addition to more than 85,000 pending cases, these tribunals may also soon hear more than a million appeals from those excluded from the NRC,” Mr. Bhat said.
