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Informist, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024

 

--SC upholds constitutional validity of Section 6A of Citizenship Act

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court today upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 rejecting a batch of petitions by Assam Public Works president, the Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, and others. Section 6A established Mar. 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for entry into the state, essentially meaning that those who entered the state after that would be considered illegal immigrants. 

 

While the four judges of the Constitution Bench – Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice Surya Kant, Justice Manoj Misra, and Justice M.M. Sundresh – upheld Section 6A of the 1955 Act, Justice B. Pardiwala held Section 6A unconstitutional with prospective effect.

 

Chief Justice Chandrachud said that the Assam Accord entered into between the Centre and leaders of the Assam movement was a political solution to the issue of growing migration, while Section 6A was the legislative solution. He said that the cut-off date of Mar. 24, 1971 was correct and migration from East Pakistan into Assam was greater than the total migration into India post Independence. Section 6A satisfies the condition of rationale yardstick, the chief justice said, adding that it was neither under-inclusive nor over-inclusive.

 

The top court said that the mere presence of different ethnic groups in a state did not mean infringement of Article 29(1) of the Indian Constitution. Petitioners have to prove that one ethnic group is not able to protect its own language and culture just because of the presence of another, it said. Justice Surya Kant, writing for Justices Misra and Sundresh, said, "We cannot allow one to choose their neighbours and it runs against their principle of fraternity." 

 

The court said that the cut-off date prescribed did not suffer from manifest arbitrariness. There were legible delineated conditions for migrants who came before 1966 and after 1966 and before 1971, it said.

 

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Pardiwala said his line of reasoning was that a piece of legislation might be valid at the time of enactment, but by afflux of time, it had turned temporarily flawed. Justice Pardiwala said that the legislature could have simply conferred deemed citizenship to anyone who entered before 1971. But the fact that a statutory category was created from 1966 to 1971 subject to a stricter condition (no voting rights for 10 years) would mean that conferment of citizenship was not the only objective and it was, in fact, to pacify the people of Assam that such inclusion would not impact the then upcoming elections in the state, said Justice Pardiwala.

 

On Mar. 25, 1971, Pakistan's army launched a crackdown in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, to crush the Bengali nationalist movement led by Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, whose Awami League had won the Pakistani elections of 1970 but was denied a shot at forming the government. The crackdown led to millions of refugees fleeing to the Indian states bordering East Pakistan, including Assam.

 

In 1985, Section 6A was inserted into the Citizenship Act through the Assam Accord between the central government and the leaders of the Assam movement to preserve and protect the Assamese culture, heritage, and linguistic and social identity. The Assam Accord, which determines who is a foreigner in the state, was signed after a six-year-long agitation against the influx of migrants from Bangladesh into the state.

 

However, Section 6A granted citizenship to all immigrants who entered Assam from Bangladesh before Jan. 1, 1966. Section 6A of the Citizenship Act says those who came to the state on or after Jan. 1, 1966, but before Mar. 25, 1971, from Bangladesh would be detected as foreigners; they would have to register themselves according to the rules made by the Centre. It stated that till a period of 10 years from the date those people were detected as foreigners, they would have the same rights and obligations as citizens, except being included on electoral rolls for any assembly or parliamentary constituency. At the end of the 10-year period, they were to be deemed citizens, according to Section 6A.

 

Thereafter, a batch of petitions was filed by Assam Public Works president, the Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, and others against Section 6A of the Citizenship Act. The petitioners said there was no verification system to check whether immigrants or their parents and grandparents migrated to Assam before Jan. 1, 1966. Section 6A had singled out Assam and facilitated mass immigration, the petitioners said.

 

The demographic of Assam had changed drastically due to immediate citizenship being granted to immigrants who claimed they entered Assam before the March 1971 cut-off date, the petitioners said. The application of Section 6A to Assam alone had led to a perceptible change in the demographic of the state and reduced the people of Assam to a minority in their own state, they claimed. 

 

In 2019, the National Register of Citizens in Assam was published and conducted with the cut-off date of Mar. 24, 1971. The petitions before the top court wanted 1951 to be established as the cut-off date for inclusion in the register, instead of 1971. 

 

Meanwhile, the Centre had said that Parliament was only exercising its power to make citizenship laws under Article 11 of the Indian Constitution. Section 6A was enacted after considering foreign policy and international relations to carve out a special law for the purpose of a specific object, it said. 

 

Other respondents in the case, including Jamiat Ulema i-hind, the All Assam Minorities Students Union, the Citizens for Justice and Peace, have said that if Section 6A was struck down, a large swathe of residents will be rendered "stateless" after enjoying citizenship rights for over 50 years.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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