4. Violations of Natural Justice and the Right of Due Process As one lawyer put it: “When the Court says even a half-page enquiry is sufficient, you can’t expect much justice.” As a result, neither the FTs nor the High Court has developed a jurisprudence of procedural fairness suited to citizenship determination. Instead, there is growing tolerance for procedural evasion. Courts focus narrowly on the sufficiency of documentation submitted by the defendant, sidestepping questions about referral legality or FT jurisdiction. The failure to treat defective referrals as jurisdictional flaws reflects a deeper institutional pathology. The law recognises that proceedings based on unlawful or baseless referrals are void. Yet, the High Court routinely remands cases rather than quashing them, seemingly out of fear that rigorous scrutiny would expose the system’s illegality and overwhelm it. As one practitioner noted: “If you apply the law strictly, 80% of referrals would be thrown out. They don’t want that. So the law is bent to accommodate the process.�� Our review of 1,193 High Court orders from 2010 to 2019 found that only 20 mentioned objections regarding referral legality or inquiry quality—despite lawyers routinely raising such issues and deficiencies being evident on the record. Where such objections were acknowledged, the Court’s engagement was superficial or absent . For example, six of these orders disregarded essential contentions, such as allegations that no inquiry was conducted or that the defendant was denied an opportunity to supply documents. Interviews with lawyers indicate that, in practice, Tribunals consistently refuse to consider objections concerning the pre-referral inquiry. For instance, in Isha Hoque’s case,260 the defence lawyer argued that the Referral Authority had disregarded the Inquiry Officer’s report concluding that she was in fact a citizen based on her documentation. Justice Manojit Bhuyan declined to engage with this argument, holding instead that Isha Hoque had not produced additional evidence in the FT to prove the Referral Authority’s lack of due diligence. However, this response sidesteps the issue: the Referral Authority is obligated to apply its mind to the materials already collected. Given the Inquiry Officer’s finding of citizenship, the Referral Authority’s decision required justification, including concrete material collected both before and during the inquiry. Justice Bhuyan should have required the Referral Authority to justify its departure from the inquiry report rather than placing the burden on Isha Hoque to prove its inadequacy. Justice Bhuyan’s reasoning also indicates a concerning latitude granted to Referral Authorities. He stated that preliminary investigations need not be detailed or exhaustive—a mischaracterization that undermines the legal requirement for administrative authorities to apply their mind in making 260 Isha Hoque @ Md. Isha Haque Ali v. Union of India WP(C) 6472/2018 (Gauhati High Court, 21 September 2018). 93