The Assam government has asked 14 members posted or attached to six Foreigners’ Tribunals (FT) to explain why disciplinary action should not be taken against them for adding a communal rider to their donation to the State’s COVID-19 relief fund.
A show-cause notice in this regard was issued on April 30 to these FT Members, with May 8 as the deadline for replying. The State’s Political (B) Department issued the notice. ‘B’ is the section that deals with the appointment of FT members.
Kamalesh Kumar Gupta, an FT Member of western Assam’s Baksa district, in an April 7 letter to Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma listed the donations by 13 members, including his own, to the Assam Arogya Nidhi for combating the COVID-19 pandemic.
The letter carried a specific request: the money donated should not be used for those who were infected at the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi’s Nizamudddin in March.
The show-cause notice by the Department’s Deputy Secretary N.D. Patowary cited an FIR by the All Assam Minority Students’ Union on April 11 against Mr. Gupta’s “communal” letter.
“Objection has been raised to a line in the said letter that reads ‘help may not be extended to the members of violators Tablighi Jamaat, jehadi and jahil’. Such an act is unbecoming of a responsible FT Member, since it may lead to communal disharmony,” the notice said.
Retired judges and administrative officers as well as lawyers with at least seven years of legal practice qualify to be members of the quasi-judicial FTs that decide the fate of people suspected to be illegal immigrants.
Abdul Khaleque, one of three Congress MPs from Assam, on April 16 wrote to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal seeking the termination of Mr. Gupta as his “reprehensible” mindset “disqualifies him as the guardian of our Constitution”.
Mr. Gupta issued an apology four days after his contentious letter was leaked. He said he had withdrawn the letter, besides accepting he did not take the other tribunal members’ consent before issuing the letter.