The Gauhati High Court on Monday directed the Assam government to pay Rs 2 lakh in compensation to the son of a Bengali-origin Muslim woman who was forced into Bangladesh.Jahanara Begum was declared a foreigner by a foreigners tribunal in 2019 and deported to Bangladesh in June. Foreigners tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies unique to Assam that decide on matters of nationality on the basis of documentary evidence.The High Court on Monday passed a similar order in the case of Mumtaz Begum, who had also been forced out into Bangladesh, directing the state to pay her Rs 2 lakh in compensation. These are the first instances in which the court has imposed costs on the state for forcing a person to Bangladesh in violation of deportation rules.In the case of Jahanara Begum, her son had challenged the manner in which his mother was detained and deported.The court held that the authorities had failed to provide Jahanara Begum, or any adult member of her family, with a copy of the tribunal’s order before deporting her. This denied her an opportunity to challenge the decision before the High Court, it said.Jahanara Begum had challenged the tribunal’s 2019 decision before the High Court. In April, the court set aside the decision after finding that the tribunal had failed to consider the evidence of three of the four witnesses examined in the case. It sent the matter back to the tribunal for a fresh decision.Jahanara Begum appeared before the tribunal on May 29. In her petition, she had asked for the hearing to be postponed, but the request was rejected.She was subsequently taken into custody by the Border Police.Her family was initially unable to trace her. Her son learnt that she had been taken to a detention centre and obtained a certified copy of the tribunal’s fresh opinion only on June 5.According to the Border Security Force, Jahanara Begum was handed over by the Border Police on June 13 and deported to Bangladesh in the intervening night of June 13 and June 14.Assam’s tribunals have stripped about 1,30,000 people of Indian citizenship in the last four years. The process has often been criticised by higher courts as arbitrary and loaded against the poor and marginalised.In May last year, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Assam launched a crackdown on “declared foreigners” like Jahanara Begum, picking them up from their home across the state and forcing them into Bangladesh in the dead of night.“Declared foreigners” are typically long-term residents with families and properties in Assam, who have failed to prove their citizenship in foreigner tribunals through documentary evidence.Inputs by Rokibuz Zaman. Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sneha.