The Supreme Court Wednesday sought response from the Centre and the Assam government on a plea of an imprisoned paralysed man who has been declared a foreigner by a tribunal and facing eminent deportation to Bangladesh.
Azizul Hoque, who is lodged in a detention centre since March 24, 2017, was declared a foreigner by a tribunal in Assam in an ex-parte proceedings as he failed to appear due to lower-limb paralysis, the petition said.
The tribunal and the Gauhati High Court declared Hoque, whose name figured in the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) of Assam as a citizen, as foreigner on the ground that neither he nor his representative appeared before the tribunal, it said.
"Issue notice. Returnable within three weeks," said a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose.
Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde and lawyer Anas Tanwir, appearing for Hoque, said that the Foreigners Tribunal and the high court both erred in holding that the man was an illegal foreigner needed to be deported.