6. Conclusion This inversion of evidentiary norms is not accompanied by any compensatory procedural safeguards. Missing hearings can be fatal for defendants, as they must meet an impossibly high burden in demonstrating that they were unable to attend proceedings. There is also no statutory guidance on what constitutes sufficient evidence, no clarity on acceptable documents or their weight, and no uniform approach to reconciling discrepancies. Instead, as documented in Chapter 3, the FTs regularly reject voter rolls, GP certificates, school records, oral testimony, and even official documents on arbitrary grounds—including ink colour, signature placement, or minor variations in age or spelling. The effect is to create a system in which individuals are held to unknowable, often shifting standards that they cannot hope to meet. This procedural imbalance is further compounded by the role of the Gauhati High Court. Rather than correcting the imbalance, the Court’s jurisprudence, especially post-Moslem Mondal, has entrenched it. By interpreting Section 9 as placing a purely persuasive burden on the individual, the High Court has effectively excused the State from producing evidence, appearing in hearings, or responding to rebuttals. The FT member thus becomes both adjudicator and proxy for the State, conducting inquiries, testing evidence, and ultimately rejecting claims—not from a position of neutrality, but from a presumption of guilt. As Chapter 5 shows, the High Court’s failures are not limited to interpretation. Its handling of writ petitions—both against ex parte FT orders and contested decisions—reflects a jurisprudence marked by inconsistency, opacity, and a lack of legal standards. Terms such as “sufficient cause,” “special circumstances,” or “interest of justice” are applied with no definitional clarity. Outcomes in seemingly identical cases vary unpredictably. Evidence is assessed without uniform standards, and decisions frequently rest on reasoning that contradicts the result or fails to explain it. The net effect is to render the constitutional safeguard of judicial review functionally meaningless. When courts fail to articulate or enforce standards, the FTs are left to operate in a legal vacuum. As this report’s analysis shows, FT members routinely deny summons, reject credible documents without explanation, and refuse to consider testimony on spurious grounds. Defendants—many of whom are illiterate, without legal representation, or from historically marginalised communities—face these proceedings without any effective procedural support. The result is not just an inequality of arms—it is the systematic denial of a fair hearing. International human rights law reinforces the illegality of this design. Comparative standards in the UK, Canada, and South Africa require procedural fairness and equality of arms in any determination of legal status or nationality. The Human Rights Committee has held that proceedings involving the risk of statelessness must comply with Article 14 of the ICCPR, including the right to be heard, access to evidence, and the ability to challenge the case. 178 The FT system, viewed as a whole, fails every one of these standards. Its adjudicatory structure, evidentiary rules, and absence of judicial oversight form a system in which no element compensates