Kolkata: Calcutta High Court on Monday asked whether the officer in charge of Chhattisgarh’s Foreigners Registration Office (FRO), who is also the superintendent of Bilaspur police, can “simultaneously decide” on the citizenship of people whose SIR appeals are pending before the appellate tribunal set up following a Supreme Court order.Justice Krishna Rao posed the question to a lawyer representing the authorities in a case related to four migrant workers from Murshidabad who have been detained for over a month in Bilaspur on suspicion of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.All four — Nasiruddin Sheikh, Laltu Sheikh, Safikul Islam and Sabir Sheikh — have challenged the deletion of their names from the electoral roll during the SIR before the appellate tribunal.“Tell me one thing, what is the duty of an appellate tribunal? What is the duty of your authorities? If your authorities are simultaneously deciding it, then I will pass an order referring the matter to Supreme Court. The authority is deciding all the nationality… Why are you doing this?” Justice Rao asked while hearing a petition filed by Mostakim Sheikh, a resident of Hiranandapur village in Murshidabad’s Samserganj and neighbour of all four detainees, seeking an order for expeditious hearing of their appeals by the appellate tribunal.Terming FRO’s move “contradictory”, the judge said, “If your authority is telling that he is not an Indian, so what will the appellate authority do? You are playing with people?” The tribunal, Justice Rao stressed, was set up based on an SC order for people stripped of their voting right during the SIR to file appeals.The judge also questioned how FRO could decide the citizenship of the detainees when the tribunal was “actively hearing” their appeals. “This is the way of administration of the Union of India in West Bengal. Once you find that the petitioner has preferred an appeal before the appellate tribunal, what would be the effect of the appeal if you are deciding the citizenship simultaneously. That is the question,” the judge observed.In his order passed on Monday, the judge noted that FRO was not made a party to the case though Election Commission’s counsel Anamika Pandey had submitted that the four had been detained by the office. The court asked the petitioner’s counsel, Raghunath Chakraborty, to make FRO a party and sought a report from the office on Oct 8, when the case will be heard again.Twenty-three persons were detained in Bilaspur on suspicion of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. While 19 of them were released, the four are still being held.Mostakim’s counsel submitted before Justice Rao that the four had all requisite documents to prove they are Indians by birth. The names of the parents of all four men were on the 2002 SIR list and they had voted in the 2026 assembly polls as well, Chakraborty submitted.
