Guwahati: The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the deportation of a woman from Assam who was declared a foreigner, noting her claim of Indian citizenship backed by multiple official documents.
A Bench comprising Justices K V Viswanathan and N Kotiswar Singh directed the Union government not to take any coercive action against the petitioner, Jaynab Bibi, until further orders. The court also issued a formal notice to the Centre and scheduled the next hearing for August 25.
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Bibi, represented by advocates Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi and Akansha Rai, asserted that she is an Indian citizen by birth and has lived in Muamari village under Dhing Mouza in Assam’s Nagaon district her entire life.
Her legal team argued that she was declared a foreigner by the Foreigners Tribunal in a “mechanical and arbitrary manner,” a decision later upheld by the Gauhati High Court in February 2025.
Referring to a 2024 Supreme Court ruling, the petitioner’s counsel argued that suspicion alone is not sufficient to classify individuals as foreigners and that the burden of proof lies with the authorities making such claims. The court had earlier expressed concern about the random and unsubstantiated branding of individuals as foreigners in Assam.
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The petition cited documentary evidence, including the petitioner’s grandfather’s name in the 1951 NRC list, her parents’ names in the voters’ lists of 1965 and 1970, and her own name in subsequent electoral rolls, along with that of her husband.
It was also argued that the Tribunal and High Court failed to consider gram panchayat certificates that established her lineage, despite the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling that such records can be admissible if proven authentic.The Supreme Court will take up the matter again on August 25 after reviewing the Union government’s response.