Filing Forged, Fabricated Pleadings In Writ Petition Is Good Ground To Dismiss It In Limine: Gauhati High Court
The Bench examined merits because citizenship was in question, held that the petitioner failed to discharge Section 9 burden; revoked interim bail.
The Gauhati High Court has held that filing a forged, fabricated and incorrect copy of a written statement and evidence-on-affidavit in a writ petition is itself a good and sufficient ground to dismiss the petition in limine. The Court said the practice, adopted by the petitioner and all his counsel, appeared aimed at misleading it, and directed that its order, with a photocopy of the vakalatnama, be sent to the Bar Council of Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.
The Court nonetheless examined the matter on merits because citizenship was in question. It upheld the finding that the petitioner failed to discharge the burden under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, and revoked his interim bail.
A Division Bench of Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Shamima Jahan observed, “…an unpardonable practice has been adopted by the petitioner and all his counsel engaged in this writ petition to mislead the Court by filing forged, fabricated and incorrect copy of written statement and evidence-on- affidavit. It must be presumed that the same was done with some ulterior motive, which is specifically aimed to mislead the Court for the reasons best known to them. Such unscrupulous practice itself constitutes good and sufficient ground to dismiss this writ petition in limine. However, the Court has refrained from doing so because the issue of citizenship of the petitioner had been questioned. Hence, though the petitioner did not deserve examination of the matter on merit, yet, the Court has examined the matter thoroughly and found that the impugned opinion is based on sound appreciation of exhibited documents. The learned Tribunal had not taken into consideration any extraneous materials or misread or misconstrued any pleading or evidence on record”.
Advocate S.K. Nargis appeared for the petitioner and C.K.S. Barua, CGC appeared for the respondents.
On October 10, 2018, the Foreigners Tribunal, Nagaon 7th at Lanka, Hojai, declared Nurul Hoque a foreigner under Section 2(a) of the Act who entered Assam after March 25, 1971 without valid documents. He claimed descent from grandparents enrolled in the 1965 and 1970 voter lists.
In his writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the Court compared the written statement and affidavit annexed to the petition with those in the Tribunal’s record. Paragraphs 14 to 16 were missing from the annexed written statement, the affidavit referred to 14 exhibits against 15, and the place of birth appeared as Samdhara in one and Godaimari in the other.
The Court also noted that the affidavit in the Tribunal’s record bore signs of eraser and overwriting, suggesting alteration after it was sworn on May 8, 2018, and held that a tampered affidavit is no evidence at all.
On merits, the Court found the petitioner had not pleaded his relationship with the voters in the exhibited lists, and that the names of his grandfather, father and great-grandfather varied across them. Placing reliance on Basiron Bibi, it held that a party cannot insist that only the favourable portions of a voter list be read. It distinguished Sirajul Hoque, where the identity of all family members was established.
Post-1971 documents were rightly discarded, the Aadhaar card proved identity and not citizenship, and the Gaonburah’s residence certificate was inadmissible because it bore the State Emblem without authority and was not proved from contemporaneous records.
“In light of such unscrupulous practice of filing ex facie forged, fabricated and incorrect copy of the written statement, and on appreciation of the pleadings and evidence available on record, there is no material to hold that the learned Tribunal had erred in any manner whatsoever, in rendering an opinion that the petitioner is not an Indian but a foreigner”, the Bench said.
The writ petition was dismissed, and the interim bail granted on December 16, 2019 was recalled. The Registry must return the Tribunal’s record and retain photocopies of both versions of the pleadings in safe custody.
Cause Title: Nurul Hoque v. Union of India & 5 Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2026:GAU-AS:15325)
Appearances:
Petitioner: S.K. Nargis, Advocate.
Respondent: C.K.S. Barua, CGC, J. Payeng, SC (FT and Border), R.B. Bora, Government Advocate, and A.I. Ali, SC (ECI).