5-judge Supreme Court bench to rule on Section 6A Citizenship Act validity today

NEW DELHI: A five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Thursday will pronouce verdict on a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Section 6A of Citizenship Act introduced in 1985 that extends the benefit of citizenship to illegal migrants from Bangladesh who settled in Assam after entering the country between January 1, 1966 and March 25, 1971.
The bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud reserved the verdict in December last year.
The bench, also comprising justices Surya Kant, MM Sundresh, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra had heard petitions filed by Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha and All Assam Ahom Sabha among others which had argued that singling out Assam was discriminatory as it violated the cultural, social, and political rights of indigenous citizens of one state. They submitted that the problem of illegal immigration is common to other states bordering Bangladesh as well.
Section 6A was a special provision inserted into the 1955 Citizenship Act on December 7, 1985, based on the Assam Accord — a tripartite agreement among the Rajiv Gandhi-led central government, the Assam government and the All Assam Students Union to preserve and protect the Assamese culture, heritage, linguistic and social identity. The Accord came at the end of a six-year-long agitation by the All Assam Students Union to identify and deport illegal immigrants, mostly from neighbouring Bangladesh, from the State.
The Centre and Assam government have maintained that Section 6A served its purpose, and it was passed in a peculiar situation following the Assam Accord of 1985 to quell violent protests in the state. “Section 6A is a part of the legislative policy of the Parliament, arising from a political settlement with relevant parties, based on certain relevant considerations of state policy and foreign policy. In such matters, it will be very difficult in determining judicially manageable standards to judge the constitutional validity of the same,” the Centre had argued.
During the hearings, the Centre also informed the court that a total of 32,381 persons were detected as foreigners by foreigner tribunals and 17,861 of them were given citizenship after getting registered with FRRO as on October 31 last year.
To the court seeking information on the inflow of illegal immigrants who came after the cut-off date of March 25, 1971, the Centre had underlined said that an accurate figure could be given “since entry of such foreign nationals into the country is clandestine and surreptitious.”
It further said, “The detection, detention and deportation of such illegally staying foreign nationals is a complex, ongoing process.”
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who represented the Centre in the case, said illegal immigration poses a grim situation as the country has a porous border through which immigrants come in clandestinely. His argument was countered by Jamait Ulema-i-Hind, an intervenor in the matter, which argued that migration is not new to Assam and no migration can ever be mapped.
The arguments against Section 6A were led by senior advocates Shyam Divan, KN Chaudhary, and Vijay Hansaria who submitted that Parliament, while enacting Section 6A, effectively amended the Constitution. They cited Article 6 of the Constitution that placed the cut off of January 1950 for migrants who came from Pakistan after July 19, 1948 and were permitted to become citizens. Section 6A, according to them, changed the cut-off to January 1966 as migrants from Bangladesh as on March 25, 1971 were citizens of East Pakistan.
It was further submitted that with the settling of illegal immigrants in Assam, the demography of the state underwent a change and politically, the migrants held a dominant position in 32 out of 126 assembly constituencies.