PAN card, voter ID alone don't prove citizenship: Gauhati High Court

The Gauhati High Court has ruled that a PAN card and an Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC), the voter ID, cannot by themselves prove that a person is an Indian citizen unless the records behind them are also proved.

A Division Bench of Justice Kalyan Rai Surana and Justice Susmita Phukan Khaund made the observation while dismissing a writ petition filed by a woman whom a Foreigners Tribunal in Assam had declared a foreigner who entered India after March 25, 1971, Live Law reported on Monday, November 10.

Why the court rejected the documents

The bench noted that PAN cards and EPICs are issued on the basis of an applicant's own declaration, without any formal enquiry into citizenship by the Income Tax Department or the Election Commission of India. For that reason, it said, they cannot be accepted as proof of citizenship unless the supporting records are produced and proved.

According to News18, the court also said that computer-generated extracts, including National Register of Citizens (NRC) data, carry no evidentiary value without the certification needed to show they are authentic, and that oral evidence from family members without documents is not enough to establish ancestry. It recalled that under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, the burden of proving citizenship lies on the person claiming it.

The petitioner's case

The woman said she was born in Assam on April 25, 1977. She relied on the 1966 and 1970 voter lists carrying the names of her projected grandparents, her father's PAN card and EPIC, her own voter ID, a ration card and an NRC application receipt. She also said her father had contested Lok Sabha and Assembly elections and had served as an elected councillor of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation.

The tribunal held that she had failed to prove her link to her projected father. The High Court agreed, finding that she had not established the relationship with her father and grandparents through reliable evidence, nor their continuous residence in Assam as required under Section 6A(2) of the Citizenship Act, 1955.

Plea of wrong legal advice rejected

The petitioner had argued that her earlier lawyer wrongly told her the documents already filed were sufficient, and sought a fresh chance to examine her parents and other relatives as witnesses. The bench called this an afterthought, noting that she had been given several opportunities to produce more evidence before the tribunal and had not complained to the Bar Council about her former counsel. It also rejected her claim that she had not been heard, pointing to the tribunal's order sheet. Interim relief granted to her earlier was withdrawn.

Why it matters

Foreigners Tribunals in Assam hear thousands of citizenship cases, and documents such as voter IDs and PAN cards are commonly filed as evidence. The ruling reinforces that such identity cards, on their own, will not settle a case without the underlying records that link a person to ancestors who lived in Assam before the 1971 cut-off.