NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Thursday declared all Bangladeshi migrants who entered Assam on or after Mar 25, 1971, as illegal migrants. Given the grave adverse impact they have had on the state’s culture and demography, the Union and state govts must expedite their identification, detection and deportation, SC said.
A five-judge bench delivered this verdict by four to one majority while upholding the validity of Section 6A of Citizenship Act, which was introduced in Dec 1985 in sync with the 1985 Assam Accord that Rajiv Gandhi govt signed with students’ unions, which were agitating against massive illegal influx of Bangladeshis.The section’s validity was challenged in SC on the ground that it differed from the cut-off dates prescribed in Constitution for grant of citizenship.
SC decides to monitor detection & deportation of aliens from Assam
Under Section 6A, those Bangladeshi migrants who entered Assam before Jan 1, 1966, would be deemed Indian citizens, whereas those who came to the state between Jan 1966 and March 24, 1971, were to be given citizenship after 10 years subject to certain conditions.
While the majority opinion running into 185 pages, authored by Justice Surya Kant for himself and Justices M M Sundresh and Manoj Misra, went beyond the validity of Section 6A and delved into the cultural and demographic crisis faced by inhabitants of Assam because of illegal influx of Bangladeshi migrants and prescribed remedial steps, CJI D Y Chandrachud stopped at upholding the validity of Section 6A. Justice J B Pardiwala dissented and quashed Section 6A prospectively.
Illegal entry of Bangladeshis, which has been going on since the country’s partition in 1947, has been a wedge issue with BJP and AGP campaigning against it as a threat to the country’s integrity and security and a “plot” to change the demography in border areas, and their opponents accusing them of exaggerating the problem due to the Muslim faith of the illegal immigrants.
The issue, which played a major role in BJP’s rise as the dominant force in Assam at the expense of Congress and, interestingly, AGP, has already become a key theme in the approaching Jharkhand polls.
Justice Kant dealt with the situation arising from unchecked infiltration of Bangladeshi migrants threatening to swamp Assam, and referred to a two decade-old judgment in Sarbananda Sonowal case in which the SC had observed that “there can be no manner of doubt that the state of Assam is facing ‘external aggression and internal disturbance’ on account of largescale illegal migration of Bangladeshi nationals”.
“Immigrants who entered Assam on or after March 25, 1971, are not entitled to the protection conferred vide Section 6A and, consequently, they are declared to be illegal immigrants. Accordingly, Section 6A has become redundant qua those immigrants who have entered Assam on or after March 25, 1971,” Justices Kant, Sundresh and Misra said.
The majority held that the directions issued for identification, detection and deportation of illegal Bangladeshi migrants who entered Assam after Mar 25, 1971, must be implemented expeditiously. Importantly, it said five laws – Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950; Foreigners Act, 1946; Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964; Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920; and Passport Act, 1967 – must act in tandem to give effect to the legislative objective of Section 6A, that is not to permit any illegal Bangladeshi migrant to enter Assam after March 25, 1971.
Finding that the SC’s directives in the Sonowal judgment had not been implemented properly even after 20 years as only 97,714 cases were pending before Foreigners Tribunals even though millions of illegal Bangladeshi migrants have entered the state, the SC decided to monitor progress of detection and deportation of such migrants from now.
“Implementation of immigration and citizenship legislations cannot be left to the mere wish and discretion of the authorities, necessitating constant monitoring by this court,” Kant said.
In his 94-page opinion, CJI Chandrachud said, “The legislative objective of Section 6A was to balance the humanitarian needs of migrants of Indian origin and the impact of the migration on the economic and cultural needs of Indian states. The two yardsticks employed in Section 6A, that is migration to Assam and the cut-off date of March 24, 1971, are reasonable.”
Aasu terms SC seal on Sec 6A ‘historic’, ex-NRC coordinator flags data flaw
All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu), the force behind the six-year-long mass movement against infiltration that led to the Assam Accord of 1985, celebrated Thursday what it termed a “historic” second victory in the fight to save the state’s identity and demography after SC upheld the constitutional validity of the key citizenship clause brought by amendment to implement the tripartite agreement.
Samujjal Bhattacharjya, Aasu’s chief adviser, said the SC ruling on Section 6A of the Citizenship Act “effectively endorses the Assam Accord” as the commitments in the pact hinge on implementation of this clause that was challenged in court. “We wholeheartedly welcome the SC verdict. It has established that the Assam agitation was undertaken for genuine reasons, and all provisions stand legally validated.”
Senior Gauhati HC advocate Bijan Kumar Mahajan said people, irrespective of caste, creed and religion, ought to now acknowledge the sanctity of Section 6A. “Since our student days, we have faced the dilemma of whether 1951 or 1971 is the base year for determining citizenship. The wait is over. It is the beauty of the Indian judiciary that a Constitution bench of the apex court has upheld Section 6A by a 4:1 majority.”
Abhijeet Sarma of Assam Public Works, the original petitioner in the case that led SC to order an enumeration exercise to update the NRC in the state, described the validation of Section 6A as “a historic resolution of the controversy”.
He flagged doubts about the authenticity of the data in the updated NRC and the delay in ordering its verification as a hurdle to implementing the Assam Accord despite SC’s order. “What about the future of the Assamese people? Even today, the answer to this question is an authentic NRC. SC’s verdict, in fact, highlights NRC’s relevance.”
Retired IAS officer Hitesh Dev Sarma, the former NRC coordinator in Assam, was among those who struck a discordant note about SC upholding Section 6A as constitutionally valid. In a social media post, he termed the judgment “a disheartening development” and “a terrible day for Assam”.
He said the BJP-led state govt not moving SC for a comprehensive review of the NRC may have already paved the way for citizenship to foreigners whose names were included in the updated citizenship rolls based on allegedly faulty credentials. “Chances are the current NRC with lakhs of foreigners’ names will now be declared the final document.”
The core of Section 6A is that immigrants who entered Assam before Jan 1, 1966, will enjoy all rights as citizens, while those who came to the state between Jan 1, 1966, and March 25, 1971, will be subject to checks and compliance with case-specific requirements.