6. Conclusion witness is not named in the written statement, lacks documentary corroboration, or is a relative. Yet oral evidence against defendants is often accepted without scrutiny. There is no intelligible threshold of proof—only an endlessly shifting set of requirements, often invented in the moment and applied selectively. This legal vacuum makes it impossible for individuals to know in advance what will satisfy the tribunal, rendering the opportunity to be heard effectively meaningless. The situation is compounded by the refusal of FTs to summon witnesses or provide access to inquiry reports. In many cases, individuals are asked to respond to allegations without ever being told the basis on which suspicion was raised. In others, FTs decline to exercise their powers to secure testimony from gaon burahs, school officials, or panchayat functionaries, even when those individuals issued the very documents under scrutiny. The State rarely appears, almost never defends its inquiry, and is under no obligation to rebut the evidence of the defendant. Yet, FTs rarely draw adverse inferences against the State, choosing instead to scrutinise the individual’s case for contradictions. As a result, the process collapses into a unilateral evaluation of defence evidence, stripped of any normative symmetry or procedural reciprocity. These violations are not remedied at the level of judicial review. As Chapter 5 reveals, the Gauhati High Court has failed to act as a site of correction or normative clarification. In its jurisprudence on ex parte cases, it has refused to define “sufficient cause” with any precision, leaving litigants without guidance and allowing FTs to deny redress in arbitrary fashion. The Court’s reasoning is inconsistent: similar factual situations lead to opposite outcomes, while judicial terms like “interest of justice,” “exceptional circumstances,” or “special circumstances” are invoked without explanation or definition. In contested FT cases, the High Court accepts or rejects discrepancies in names, ages, and other personal details without a coherent evidentiary approach. Oral and documentary evidence are evaluated not by legal standards, but by impressionistic and often unarticulated preferences. This erratic jurisprudence leaves both FTs and defendants without binding legal standards to follow, enabling—and even encouraging—adjudication in a vacuum. The consequence is a regime of procedural arbitrariness at every level. There are wrong legal norms (such as the mistaken interpretation of the burden of proof under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act); non-implementation of existing procedural safeguards (such as the right to legal aid or notice); and vast normative vacuums where no standards exist at all. These defects do not exist in isolation. They are mutually reinforcing, compounding the disadvantage faced by individuals, and erasing any prospect of meaningful engagement with the law. Once viewed systemically, it becomes evident that the denial of due process is not a result of isolated lapses—it is the functional logic of the FT regime. 180