NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act which grants Indian citizenship to immigrants who came to Assam between January 1, 1966 and March 25, 1971. A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said the Assam Accord was a political solution to the problem of illegal migration.Section 6A was inserted into the Citizenship Act in 1985 as a special provision to deal with the citizenship of people covered under the Assam Accord. It formed the basis of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam in 2019.
In 1985, the Rajiv Gandhi government and the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) negotiated and drafted the Assam Accord and created categories of immigrants. AASU and AAGSP were groups that agitated against the influx of Bangladeshi-immigrants after Bangladesh separated from West Pakistan on 26 March 1971.
What did the SC bench say
The CJI, writing for himself, upheld the validity of the provision and said the magnitude of influx of migrants in Assam is higher as compared to other states considering the smaller land size and the detection of foreigner is an elaborate process. Justice Surya Kant, who wrote for himself and Justices M M Sundresh and Manoj Misra, concurred with the CJI and held that Parliament had the legislative competence to enact such a provision.
The majority verdict held that cut off date of March 25, 1971 for entry into Assam and granting citizenship is correct.
What did the dissenting judge say
Justice J B Pardiwala, who dissented from the majority judgment, said the open-ended nature of Section 6A had become more prone to abuse due to the advent of forged documents. He said the mandate of timely detection and deportation of illegal immigrants was the fundamental premise on which the Assam Accord was signed, but this intention was never translated statutorily, owing to a faulty mechanism prescribed under Section 6A(3), either due to “inadvertence or advertence” of the legislature.
Justice Pardiwala said Section 6A promotes further immigration into Assam without any end date of application and immigrants come hoping with forged documents to set up the defence of belonging to pre-1966 or the 1966-71 stream upon identification as a foreigner and reference to the tribunal.
The judge said while the object that was sought to be achieved with the enactment of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act remained a distant dream, its misuse had only continued to increase with the passage of time.
“The open-ended nature of Section 6A has, with the passage time, become more prone to abuse due to the advent of forged documents to establish, inter-alia (among other things), wrong date of entry into Assam, inaccurate lineage, falsified government records created by corrupt officials, dishonest corroboration of the date of entry by other relatives so as to aid illegal immigrants who are otherwise not eligible under Section 6A by virtue of having entered into Assam after March 24,1971,” he noted in a separate 127-page dissenting judgement.
“I say so because with the passage of time, the government records would get damaged and perish, making it increasingly difficult to cross-check the false claims that may be made by the immigrants of the post-1971 stream trying to misuse the benefits conferred exclusively to the immigrants of the pre1971 stream,” observed Justice Pardiwala.
He further said that Section 6A, in the absence of any temporal limit to its application, was being counter-productive to the object of enactment.
“Neither Section 6A nor the rules made thereunder prescribe any outer time-limit for the completion of detection of all such persons who belong to the 1966-71 stream and are eligible to avail the benefits of Section 6A(3). The clock only starts to tick once the detection is made by the foreigners tribunal and there is no prescription as to the period of time within which the exercise of detection is to be completed from the commencement of Section 6A,” he underlined.
Historic verdict, validates our agitation: AASU
The All Assam Students Union (AASU), which spearheaded a six-year-long agitation against illegal immigrants in Assam in 1979-85, welcomed the Supreme Court judgment upholding the validity of Section 6A of Citizenship Act.
AASU chief adviser Samujjal Bhattacharjya said with its order, the Supreme Court has given its stamp of approval to the Assam Accord under which all those who had entered Assam illegally must be detected and deported from the country.
“We wholeheartedly welcome the Supreme Court verdict. It is a historic verdict. It has established that the Assam agitation was undertaken with genuine reasons and all provisions of the Assam Accord are now legally validated by the apex court,” Bhattacharjya said.
Can’t make Assam a dumping ground for illegal migrants: Petitioner
Matiur Rahman, a former AASU leader who filed the original petition in the Supreme Court on behalf of the Sanmilita Mahasabha, an Assam-based organisation challenging the inclusion of Section 6A in the Citizenship Act, said they wanted 1951, and not 1971 which is the year fixed in the Assam Accord, as the cut-off year for the detection and deportation of all illegal immigrants in Assam.
“We wanted the rights of the indigenous people of the Assam to be fully protected and hence, we have been seeking 1951 as the cut off date for deportation of all illegal immigrants from Assam. The Supreme Court verdict will jeopardise the rights of Assam’s indigenous people. You can’t make Assam a dumping ground for illegal immigrants. The judgment is very very unfortunate,” he told news agency PTI.
What is Section 6A of the Citizenship Act 1955?
Section 6A was inserted into the Citizenship Act as a special provision to deal with the citizenship of people covered under the 1985 Assam Accord. It is referred in the law as “special provisions as to citizenship of persons covered by the Assam Accord”.
The provision provides that those who had come to Assam on or after January 1, 1966, but before March 25, 1971, from specified territories, including Bangladesh, and since then are residents of Assam, must register themselves under Section 18 for citizenship. These people were barred from registering as citizens of India for 10 years from the day of their detection as per the provision of the Assam Accord. As per Assam Accord, those who had come after March 25, 1971, are bound to be deported from India. As a result, the Section 6A fixes March 25, 1971, as the cut-off date for granting citizenship to migrants, particularly the ones from Bangladesh, residing in Assam.
(With inputs from agencies)