1. Framing the Intervention 24 D-Voter Reference Cases before the Foreigners Tribunals as of 31 December 2023 244,144 94,412 149,732 51,505 D-Voter Case References made to the Foreigners Tribunals Pending D-Voter cases before the Foreigners Tribunals D-voter cases Disposed by the Foreigners Tribunals D-Voters Declared as Foreigners by the Foreigners Tribunals These administrative measures are underpinned by profound uncertainty over numbers. In 2016, the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs claimed that there were approximately 20 million Bangladeshi migrants in India. However, a 2018 Right to Information (RTI) response from the Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed that no such estimate exists. The central justification for mechanisms like the NRC and the FT process rests on the assumption that such methods provide legal clarity and administrative fairness. But, as this report argues, those systems must themselves be transparent, consistent, and procedurally just. Otherwise, they risk transforming unverified claims into instruments of exclusion. This concern is particularly acute in light of what the Supreme Court observed in Rahim Ali: that deprivation of citizenship has “penal” consequences. Even if proceedings before the FTs are not formally classified as criminal, the severity of the outcomes demands that the standards of adjudication meet the highest threshold of fairness. Therefore, this report proceeds from the conviction that any system capable of stripping citizenship, detaining individuals, or creating statelessness must meet the highest legal, constitutional, and human rights standards. Migration management and border control cannot be pursued through mechanisms that violate fundamental rights or due process. Assam’s current regime—shaped by contested history, legal ambiguity, and administrative discretion—creates a machinery of exclusion that fails legal and constitutional tests.