New Delhi, July 13 -- The Supreme Court pronounced judgment on a batch of petitions challenging the denial of citizenship by the Foreigners' Tribunal in Assam. The court said citizenship and foreigner status must be determined through a "fair, lawful and reasonable" process, while setting aside judgments of the Gauhati High Court that had upheld declarations of 27 appellants as foreigners.

The petitioners argued that they were declared foreigners simply due to hyper-technical errors such as minor spelling mismatches of names in old voter lists.

"we clarify the limited scope of the judgement. We have not expressed any opinion on any documents relied upon by the appellants. The impugned judgements of the high court are set aside. Foreigne...