New Delhi: The Supreme Court today, October 17, upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955. The section recognises the Assam Accord.
A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud and also with Justices Surya Kant, M.M. Sundresh, J.B. Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra delivered the judgment.
LiveLaw has reported that Justice Pardiwala gave the dissenting judgment and held the Section 6A as unconstitutional.
The Section 6A allows foreign migrants of Indian origin, who arrived in Assam after January 1, 1966 and before March 25, 1971 – when the war to liberate Bangladesh ended – to seek Indian citizenship.
It was added after the movement in Assam against migrants from Bangladesh led to the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985 between the Union government and the movement’s leaders.
The Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, a civil society group based in Guwahati, contested this provision in 2012 alleging that it was discriminatory to have separate cut-off dates for Assam versus the rest of India. The petitioners claimed that the section went against the essential fabric of the constitution, along with the fundamental right to equality. The case was first heard in 2014 and referred to a constitution bench, but this bench, first formed in 2017, had to be reconstituted multiple times.
The majority opinion had it that singling Assam out was rational as Assam’s percentage of immigrants is higher than other border states.
The impact of 40 lakh migrants in Assam is greater than the 57 lakh migrants in Bengal as land is smaller in Assam, it said.
CJI Chandrachud also said that the Assam Accord was a political solution to the problem of illegal migration and Section 6A was the legislative solution, LiveLaw reported.
The court has asked the Union home ministry to gather and furnish data on the inflow of “illegal migrants” to the Northeast and Assam, after the 1971 cut off date.
