Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta informed the apex court on Thursday that at present 79 single member Tribunals consisting of judicial members, advocates and also retired civil servants were functioning to adjudicate cases related to illegal detention of foreigners in Assam.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Aniruddha Bose questioned the SG: “How can retired civil servants head such tribunals.”
Mehta replied: “The number of members required is huge and so retired civil servants are also being taken as members.”
The bench further asked: “Where are you going to get these people from. No reasonable person would want to be appointed as a member of a Tribunal and retire as such except for a retired judge.”
SG places before the bench a set of documents relevant to the issue of additional Tribunals and said that on May 29, 2019 a letter has been addressed to the Registrar General of the High Court of Gauhati in relation to the 200 posts to be filled up in the additional Foreigner Tribunals.
The bench said that the concerned authority shall proceed in accordance with the notification of May 24 subject to modifications in clause 3.
The court was hearing a plea concerning the illegal detention of foreigners and their plight in Assam.
—India Legal Bureau
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