New Delhi: The Gauhati high court has rejected a woman’s plea to be recognised as a citizen of India based on the documentary support she could provide, such as the EPIC (voter identity) cards and PAN cards belonging to her and her family members and a ration card. A bench of Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Susmita Phukan Khaund said that the woman could not establish that she was her father’s daughter or that she was linked with her grandparents based on the documents she had, and cancelled her bail.“The PAN Card and EPIC are not a proof of citizenship. These are documents that are issued on self-application without any formal enquiry by the Income Tax Department and Election Commission of India. Therefore, unless, the records supplementing the PAN Card and EPIC are proved, the said exhibited documents cannot be accepted as a proof of citizenship of India,” the court said, as per a report in Live Law.A Foreigners Tribunal in Assam had said that the woman, Kulchan Begum, born in April 1977, had “entered India after March 25, 1971”. This disqualifies her as a citizen as per the National Register of Citizens (NRC), conducted in the state under the Supreme Court’s supervision nearly seven years ago, unless she could prove continuous residence of her parents in the state. This, the court said, she could not do.Also read: Assam’s Foreigners’ Tribunals Are Instruments of Exclusion, New Report SaysThe woman had said that her father was an Indian citizen whose name appeared in the electoral records and who had also contested Lok Sabha and Assembly elections and served as an elected councillor of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation. Her father contested elections, but that did not prove she was his daughter, the court observed.The court said that the woman could not establish that the person she claimed was her father was really so as per the documents she provided, which included electoral rolls in which she and her family members were listed and a ration card. There were inconsistencies in dates of birth and other particulars in the documents she was able to provide, the court noted.As per Section 6A(2) of the Citizenship Act, the court observed that the “petitioner was required to prove that her grandparents and father had continuously resided in Assam”.The woman, as per the court, had failed to prove an Area Sabha representative’s certificate through its author, while the acknowledgement to the NRC application that she provided was also not supported by the original document. The ration card and voter list of 2018 also failed to establish the required parental linkage, as per the court.As per the court, she had also failed to establish the continuous residence of her projected grandparents and father in Assam as required under Section 6A(2) of the Citizenship Act, 1955, reports Live Law.Also read: Foreigner Tribunal Cannot Review its Own Orders: Supreme CourtThe court also rejected her contention that she had provided the best documents possible for her based on the legal advise she got earlier, saying that she had not complained about her previous lawyer with the bar association.Kulchana Begum requested that her case be returned to the tribunal for additional witnesses, including her parents and other family members to appear before it. But the high court ruled that she had had enough opportunities to present her case.Aadhaar cards, EPIC cards, PAN cards, Gram Panchayat certificates, bank account and property documents have all been rejected as evidence of citizenship by courts across India over the past several years.In July, the Supreme Court ruled that citizenship must be determined via a “fair, lawful and reasoned” process, as it quashed Foreigners Tribunals and Guwahati high court orders that declared 27 people foreign nationals. The tribunals have come under severe criticism for how they have been “designed to exclude” those appearing before them.The top court noted that the consequence of a person being declared a foreign national is huge and may lead to detention, deportation, separation from family and even possibly leave them stateless, The Wire reported.The Assam government has stated that between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2026, it sent 1,679 people to Bangladesh, including those formally deported, those “sent back” and those “expelled”.