On Tuesday, 8 September, seven Muslim Assistant Government Pleaders (AGPs) were removed from service at the Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) in Dhubri.
They have been replaced by seven advocates belonging to the Hindu community, The move has sparked allegations of bias and discrimination in the process.buy zithromax generic rxbuywithoutprescriptiononline.net/zithromax.html over the counter
The tribunals are quasi judicial bodies reviewing cases of those whose citizenship has been marked suspect by the Assam Border Police organisation, and of those left out of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) list. Each FT has one AGP.
Signed by the state’s joint secretary, the notification announced the termination of the services of AGPs Aminul Islam, Kamal Hussain Ahmed, Rabial Hoque Mandal, Aftab Uddin Ahmed, Sahabul Ahmed and Motiur Rahman Paramanik.
They have been replaced by Rituparna Guha, Gokul Chandra Karmakar, Adhir Chandra Roy, Aninda Paul, Shankar Prasad Chakraborty, Ananda Kumar Rai and Sangita Koeri at different FTs in Dhubri district.
The lawyers who are affected by the decision also questioned. “My performance report last year was ‘Well and Good’; not only me, all of us got good performance reviews from the Home and Political (B) department. But this time, they did not wait for any report and terminated us,” said 45-year-old Sahabul Ahmed, who was the AGP at the court of FT 9 in Dhubri town.
Sahabul said the decision has “immensely hurt” him, and is not willing to make further comments.
“This is political discrimination. It has been done on religious lines,” Kamal Hussain Ahmed a 50-year-old has been an AGP at FT in Dhubri, said, “Without offering any explanation, the deputy commissioner cannot recommend our names for termination (of services), it is the homesecretary or the Gauhati High Court that seeks an application from the official concerned before passing an order under valid reasons.”H
He had been serving at FT No. 2 in Dhubri since March 2016, and granted three extensions. When asked by Assam Chief Secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna for a comment on why the decision on Dhubri district, he just said the order is just a “normal government notification”.Me
anwhile, Abhijeet Sharma of the Assam Public Works (APW), who is a petitioner in the NRC case in the Supreme Court, welcomed the decision. “If the state has found discrepancies in their functioning, it is a right decision as FT courts have an important role to play in the issue of illegal immigration.
Many a time, an innocent has been declared non-citizen while the one who is possibly a foreigner remains undetected.”
“We had always suspected that names of illegal immigrants have been included in the final NRC. Former state NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela had told the court that there was no need for 10% re-verification in all districts because he had already done 27% re-verification.
In Dhubri district, 38% re-verification was done. As many as 4,096 people were excluded”, he added.