The Supreme Court of India.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, inserted after the signing of the Assam accord on August 15, 1985.
A Constitution bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, and Justices Surya Kant, M M Sundresh, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, by a majority view of 4:1, rejected a challenge to the legal provision which provided citizenship to people migrated from Bangladesh earlier known as East Pakistan.
The CJI said the objective of the provision must be understood in the backdrop of the Post-Bangladesh War.
He said that the Assam Accord was a political solution to the problem of illegal migration and Section 6A was the legislative solution.
He held that Section 6A was enacted to balance the humanitarian concerns with the need to protect the local population.
CJI Chandrachud also said Section 6A of the Citizenship Act confers citizenship on those who migrated from Bangladesh to Assam until March 24, 1971, and Article 6 and proviso to Article 7 confers citizens on a limited class.
“The Assam Accord was a political solution to the issue of growing migration and Section 6A was a legislative solution. Section 6A is one more statutory intervention in the long list of legislation that balances the humanitarian needs of migrants of Indian Origin and the impact of such migration on economic and cultural needs of Indian States,” he said.
He also said Section 6A enactment was a political solution to a unique problem faced by Assam due to the massive influx of illegal migrants into the state after the creation of Bangladesh, which had threatened its culture and demography.
The court noted that the Centre could have extended the act to other areas as well, but did not do so because it was unique to Assam.
“The objective of the provision must be understood in the backdrop of the Indian policy on post-partition migration and the Assam movement. The principle of temporal unreasonableness cannot be applied to a situation where the classification is still relevant to the objective of the provision. The process of detection and conferring citizenship in Assam is a long-drawn out process spanning many decades. To strike it down due to lapse of time is to ignore the context and object of the provision,” the CJI said.
The CJI also said as a matter of constitutional principle, the mere presence of different ethnic groups in a State is not sufficient to infringe the right guaranteed by Article 29(1). “Article 29(1) confers the right to ‘conserve’ which means the right to take positive steps to protect culture and language,” he said.
In a concurring view, Justice Surya Kant, along with Justices Sundresh and Mishra, said Parliament had legislative powers to lay down the conditions under Section 6A and that cannot be controlled.
Justice Surya Kant rejected contention by the petitioners that Section 6A suffered from manifest arbitrariness, or it was against the principle of fraternity, and caused external aggression or internal disturbances.
He also held the provision does not suffer from the vice of vagueness.
In fact, the provision provided for detection and deportation of illegal immigrants, he said.
Parliament was conversant with all facts of the situation in enacting the provision, he said.
Justice Surya Kant also held international law can't trump domestic laws. He held Section 6A is constitutionally valid and it is a valid piece of legislation.
Justice J B Pardiwala, however, dissented with the majority view.
The provision was inserted into the Act in December 1985 in furtherance of the Assam Accord. The Assam Accord was an agreement between the Union government and the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP).
The Assam group raised agitation against an influx of Bangladeshi-immigrants after Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, separated from West Pakistan on March 26, 1971. Section 6A was added to the Citizenship Act to assuage AASU and AAGSP’s concerns and identify and expel foreign immigrants who entered Assam after March 25, 1971.
Section 6A granted citizenship to all immigrants who entered Assam from Bangladesh before January 1, 1966. Further, immigrants who entered Assam between January 1, 1966, and March 24, 1971, were considered as Indian citizens without voting privileges for 10 years.