The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, which gives citizenship to immigrants in Assam. The five-judge bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud upheld the constitutional validity of the section by a majority of 4:1.
The bench comprising CJI Chandrachud, Justices Surya Kant, MM Sundresh and Manoj Misra agreed that Section 6A of the Citizenship Act is valid. The bench was dealing with 17 petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Section 6A inserted into the Citizenship Act.
The bench commented that the Assam Accord was a political decision to solve the problem of illegal immigration. The Assam Accord has a framework to recognize the migrants in Assam as Indians or expel them depending upon the date of their migration.
The apex court also observed that the cut-off date of March 25, 1971, for entering into Assam and then granting citizenship is correct.
"Merely presence of different ethnic groups in a state does not mean infringement of Article 29(1)," the CJI-headed bench noted. However, Justice JB Pardiwala dissented to the verdict in minority, holding Section 6A as unconstitutional, news agency PTI reported.
Section 6A was inserted into the Citizenship Act, 1955 as a special provision to deal with the citizenship of people covered under the Assam Accord.
According to the section, those who came into Assam on or after January 1, 1966 but before March 25, 1971 from such specified territories as Bangladesh, under the Citizenship Act amended in 1985, and thereafter have been residing in the northeastern state have to get themselves registered under Section 18 to become Indian citizens.
It provides that the cut-off date for conferring citizenship on migrants, specifically those from Bangladesh, living in Assam is March 25, 1971.
The Supreme Court had kept its order reserved in December last year after hearing the submissions of Attorney General R Venkataramani, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, senior advocates Shyam Divan, Kapil Sibal and others for four days.
Based on this, the apex court asked the Centre to present data on migrants who were granted Indian citizenship under Section 6A(2) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and measures taken to check illegal migration into Indian territory.
The Centre mentioned in the affidavit to the apex court it would not be able to give exact data on the scale of illegal migration of foreigners into India, as such migration was carried out in secrecy.
The Centre said in its affidavit that 14,346 foreign nationals were deported from the country between 2017-22, and 17,861 migrants who had entered Assam between January 1966 and March 1971 were given Indian citizenship under Section 6A.
It also said that 32,381 people were declared foreigners by orders of Foreigners Tribunals between 1966-71.
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