5. Embedding Violations: Role of the Assam’s High Court The High Court’s casual and selective use of legal terminology—invoking phrases like “sufficient cause,” “special circumstances,” or “interest of justice” without defining their meaning or applying them coherently—signals a deeper failure. It reflects a judiciary that, at times, decides cases based more on impression than on principle. In doing so, the Court fails to uphold the constitutional and procedural safeguards that citizenship determinations demand. The result is a process that not only undermines fairness and due process but also erodes trust in the very institutions charged with protecting these fundamental rights. 5.1.2 Arbitrary Outcomes In the previous subsection, we demonstrated that the Gauhati High Court’s failure to define or apply the sufficient cause standard coherently has rendered it effectively meaningless. The standard imposes unattainable burdens on defendants v without offering actionable guidance. Here, we go further: even these supposed standards have no discernible correlation with case outcomes. The analysis points to troubling arbitrariness in High Court determinations, where legal standards cited in judgments appear to play little role in guiding final decisions. This pattern becomes clear when examining writs challenging ex parte orders on similar grounds. Our review reveals that cases resting on identical or near-identical facts—whether citing serious illness, defective legal representation, or improper service of notice—have led to vastly different outcomes. The High Court variously dismissed petitions, remanded cases, granted liberty to apply before the FT, or outright quashed the ex parte orders. In most instances, these divergent remedies were handed down without reasoned explanation or principled justification for treating like cases differently. 147