Foreigners Tribunal has no power to review its own orders: Supreme Court

A foreigners tribunal has no power to review its own orders, the Supreme Court recently held while setting aside a review order passed by a foreigners tribunal against a woman in Assam who had already been declared an Indian citizen by a prior ruling of the tribunal [Rejia Khatun @ Rezia Khatun v. Union of India & Ors.].A Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan also set aside the Gauhati High Court order which had upheld the tribunal's second/ review order..The Supreme Court found that the Gauhati High Court had “missed the real issue” when it upheld a successive reference made against the woman, one Rejia Khatun. The Court said that once a foreigners tribunal has made a determination, the only remedy available is a challenge before a higher forum and the tribunal itself cannot sit in appeal over its own concluded judgment.“The High Court has missed the real issue. The real issue was whether the tribunal could have reopened the case by recording a finding that it can scrutinize the findings recorded by the same tribunal in an earlier judgment which had become final. As the tribunal was powerless to do it, only on that ground, we set aside the impugned judgment of the High Court as well as the impugned order dated 24th December, 2019 in F.T. Case No.2854/2012,” the Court said in its order..The case pertained to two contradictory orders passed by the foreigners tribunal regarding the citizenship status of Rejia Khatun..In 2018, the tribunal had declared that she was not a foreigner after considering oral and documentary evidence. The State of Assam had participated in those proceedings and did not challenge the order..However, in 2019, a fresh reference was made in relation to the matter, and the tribunal proceeded to scrutinize the documents again, ultimately reopening the case and directing the woman to file a written statement. The Supreme Court took exception to this and made it clear that the tribunal was not empowered to revisit its own findings in the absence of a statutory provision permitting such review..The Court further pointed out that the State did not appeal the first order from 2018 or seek its recall, and yet the tribunal initiated fresh proceedings on the same issue. This, the Court held, was impermissible.“The order indicates that the tribunal wants to sit over in an appeal against its own concluded judgment and order. Such power can never be exercised by the tribunal. The remedy of the State government or for that matter the Central government was to challenge the order dated 15th February, 2018,” the Court noted..Accordingly, the top court allowed the appeal and quashed the tribunal’s second order from December 24, 2019, as well as the Gauhati High Court ruling that upheld it..The Court clarified that its ruling does not open the door for the State or Union of India to now challenge the first order from 2018 as it had already attained finality. "This observation made today in February, 2025 does not mean that now it is open for the State or Union of India to challenge the first order dated 15th February, 2018," the Court stated..The Petitioner was represented by Senior Advocate Pijush Kanti Roy with Advocates Kakali Roy, Sujeet Kumar, Shailendra Kumar Nirmal, Nitin Kumar Gupta along with AoR Rajesh Kumar Chaurasia. .The Union, along with other State Authorities were represented by ASG Mr. KM Nataraj with Advocates Sharath Nambiar, Anuj Srinivas Udupa, Karunesh Kr. Shukla, Satvika Thakur, Arvind Kumar Sharma, Deepayan Dutta, Saurabh Tripathi, Ankit Agarwal, Viyushti Rawat, and Ashish Shukla with AoR Shuvodeep Roy. .[Read Order]