Capacity Building

Under the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964, the Foreigners Tribunals are sui generis, quasi-judicial bodies that are free to determine their own procedure without any clearly prescribed procedural constraints. FT cases constitute a significant proportion of the overall pendency volume and hence require urgent and highly specific solutions that respond to the FT specific challenges. The huge volume of pendency before the Tribunals, as well as the prospective NRC appeals process makes the provision of legal aid vital to the fulfilment of constitutional imperatives under Article 39A. In pursuit of this goal, Parichay focuses on building capacity for lawyers and law students to deal with different challenges through a series of training sessions. 

Professional Training Series on Foreigners’ Tribunals Practices

The Assam State Legal Services Authority in association with Parichay organised two training series for lawyers practicing before the Foreigners’ Tribunals on citizenship laws in November, 2021 and February, 2022. 

The November, 2021 session was a discussion session, where lawyers empanelled with the DLSAs asked questions about various aspects of practice before Foreigners Tribunals. 

Subsequently, a more elaborate training series was conducted on 5, 6, 12 and 13 February 2022 on 'Foreigners Tribunals: Latest Developments, Challenges and Strategies'. A very wide range of issues, from drafting in FT cases and preliminary challenges to jurisdiction, to preparing for final arguments and presenting evidence, were dealt with by the speakers over the four sessions. The sessions were conducted by Advocates A.R. Sikdar , Zakir Hussain, Debasmita Ghosh and Talha Abdul Rahman. The recording of the sessions can be found on our YouTube channel.

Legal Training for Students

Law students from across the country form an integral part of Parichay. As they assist lawyers through research and drafting for petitions, every student undergoes a series of extensive training. These training largely revolve around theory on citizenship and immigration, development of citizenship law, the citizenship law regime in India along with citizenship law procedures, evidence law, civil and criminal procedures applicable and rights of the proceedees.