Supreme Court Halts Deportation Of Assam Woman Declared Foreigner
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The Supreme Court stayed the deportation of Jaynab Bibi, an Assam woman declared foreigner, citing valid citizenship documents. It directed the government to take no coercive action until the next hearing on August 25.
New Delhi: Today, on June 24, 2025, the Supreme Court of India stopped the deportation of a woman named Jaynab Bibi, who had been declared a “foreigner” by a Foreigners Tribunal in Assam.
She claimed that her family has been living in Assam for many generations and that she has valid documents to prove her Indian citizenship.
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The top court’s Bench, consisting of Justices K.V. Viswanathan and N. Kotiswar Singh, passed an order instructing the Union government not to take any coercive action against her.
Jaynab Bibi was represented by advocates Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi and Akansha Rai. According to them, the Tribunal had declared her a foreigner in an “arbitrary and mechanical manner,” and this decision was later upheld by the Gauhati High Court in February 2025.
Advocate Ayyubi strongly argued that this decision was not based on any proper evidence.
The petitioner said she was born in Muamari village, located in Dhing Mouza under Nagaon district of Assam, and therefore is a citizen of India by birth.
She also highlighted that her name and the names of her family members were present in official documents for several decades.
For example, the NRC (National Register of Citizens) list of 1951 had the name of her grandfather, while the voters’ lists of 1965 and 1970 also included his name.
Additionally, the names of her parents were recorded in the voters’ lists of 1989 and 1997. Later electoral rolls included her name as well as her husband’s.
Her lawyers told the court that despite this long documentary history, the authorities still declared her an “illegal immigrant.”
Advocate Ayyubi referred to a Supreme Court judgment from 2024, where the apex court criticized the way people in Assam were being suspected of being foreigners without any proper evidence.
The court had clearly stated that:
“The clandestine manner in which the people in Assam were being randomly suspected as foreigners without any cogent evidence” was unacceptable.
Further, in the same 2024 judgment, the court had emphasized that the burden of proof lies with the government authorities and not with the individual being accused.
Mr. Ayyubi quoted the court’s observation:
“The onus was on the authority to provide necessary information to back their suspicion about the nationality of a person. Mere suspicion would not do.”
Jaynab Bibi also brought to the court’s attention that she had official records from the local gram panchayat that proved her family lineage, but neither the Foreigners Tribunal nor the Gauhati High Court considered these records seriously.
She stated that the Supreme Court, in an earlier case, had held that such gram panchayat certificates could be used to prove family legacy, as long as they were genuine and properly verified.
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Her legal team argued that this principle should have been applied in her case too, but unfortunately, it was ignored.
They insisted that she has submitted every valid document needed to prove her citizenship, and still she was wrongfully labelled a foreigner.
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