Supreme Court upholds Section 6A of Assam Accord

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Supreme Court upholds Section 6A of Assam Accord

Supreme Court upholds Section 6A of Assam Accord

The Supreme Court through the constitutional bench comprising of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, M.R. Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala upheld section 6A of the Citizenship act via judgement dated October 17, 2024 in the ratio of 4:1. Section 6A was inserted by an amendment in the Citizenship Act to implement the Assam Accord signed on August 8, 1985 between the Government of India, Government of Assam and the All Assam Student Union (AASU).

Historical Background

It is no hidden fact that the Indian state had been ruled by the Britishers or the English East India company to be precise, from about 1858 to 1947, when India had gained Independence on August 15,1947.

After the independence of India, the partition followed, which divided the Indian state into India and Pakistan. Now, that piece of land consisting the current Bangladesh and Pakistan was unitedly a single state of Pakistan i.e The East and the West Pakistan, for about 24 years before the Bangladesh Liberation war which had started on and around March 19, 1971.

During the Bangladesh Liberation war which demanded a separation from the state of Pakistan, and was a result of the Bengali Nationalist Movement which had arisen in East Pakistan, there were atrocities that had led the people to flee and take refuge elsewhere to save themselves.

This Bangladesh Liberation war had triggered one of the largest refugee crisis in South Asia, where the people had fled in large numbers to escape violence among other things specially to the neighboring states which majorly included states of West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Bihar.

A large number of refugees had crossed the borders and made the state of Assam there home even before the beginning of the war due to the ongoing communal tension in the East Pakistan.

Now, the Indian state did not close its doors to the refugees at any time and had made arrangements to embrace humanity in its raw form, which was later appreciated internationally and raised the issue of refugees globally but it also raised alarm for the protection of the indigenous population of Assam.

India had allowed the refugees to take shelter but it was also important for India to regularize the refugees as citizens for a smooth existence of the country where the people have the necessity rights to enjoy.

For the purpose of regularization of the people, and the deletion of foreigners a tripartite agreement was signed between The Government of India, The Government of Assam and The All Assam Student Union, The Assam Accord on August 15, 1985.

Now, the Assam Accord decided cut off dates for the regularization of the people as Indian citizens –

For the purpose of detection and deletion the base date and year was decided to be 1/1/1966. It was decided through the accord that whoever entered Assam before or upto 1/1/1966 will be given all the rights as citizen of India including the right to vote.

It was further decided that whoever had entered Assam after 1/1/1966 and upto 24/03/1971 will be treated in accordance with the Foreigners Act, 1946, which meant that such people would have all the rights except the right to vote for a term of ten years but after ten years the right to vote shall also be restored.

Now accordingly the requisite sections stating the necessity cut off dates were inserted in the Citizenship Act as the hotly debated section, section 6A.

In the year 2012, the Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, a Guwahati based civil society organization had challenged section 6A of the Citizenship Act, stating that the section was arbitrary and against article 6,7,14, 29 and 355 of the Indian Constitution.

The case, which was initially heard by a 2-judge bench and later referred to a full fledged 5 judge constitutional bench was titled as Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha & Others vs Union of India.

This article prepared by the team of NorthEast PSC, the best online and offline ADRE & APSC coaching centre in Nagaon summarizes and crystalizes the information around the Assam Accord,1985, section 6A of the citizenship act and the stance taken by the court of law in regard to the allegations of infringement of rights of the citizens.

All about Section 6A of Assam Accord, Citizenship Act

As already discussed earlier, section 6A was inserted to take care of the problem of foreigners, there deletion and regularization of the refugees as according to the definition of term “foreigner” defined in Foreigners Act 1946.

It further defines the territories from which refugees of such sort will be regularized to the land of Bangladesh at the time before commencement of the Citizenship (amendment) Act 1985.

It further tells who is deemed to be an Indian Citizen –

Any one who was born to parents/grandparents of Indian Origin in the undivided India.

All the persons of Indian origin who came to India before 1/1/1966, whose names were included in the electoral role for the elections held in 1967

The section further talked of the excluded people from the application of this law to be any person who was expelled from the country before commencement of the amendment of Citizenship Act 1985.

It also further stated the authority to which the names of the person who had entered after 1/1/1966 and before 25/03/1971 had to be registered so that such names could be removed from the electoral role and then reinstated after 10 years.

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Analysis of the Judgment

The court while answering all the thirteen issues framed by the 2-judge bench upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act in the ratio of 4:1, where a dissenting judgement was expressed by Hon’ble Justice JB Pardiwala.

It was argued that the Parliament had no competence to enact such law and any such amendment would have required a constitutional amendment, but the court cleared the stance and said vide its judgment dated 17/10/2024 that insertion of section 6A, was not in conflict with article 6 or 7 and fell well in the ambit of the legislative powers of the Parliament.

It was further argued that the Section 6A was a violation of Article 14, the right to equality as it applied different citizenship standards to Assam as compared to the other states. It was also argued that Section 6A sets out different cut off dates for citizenship of residents/refugees in Assam as compared to the rest of India. The court addressed the issue by stating that there has been no such infringement of article 14 because the situation of Assam was unique and could not have been compared with the rest of India.

The Hon’ble court also dismissed the allegations of violation of Article 355 which talks about duty to protect states against external aggression. It was alleged that the government had failed to protect the state of Assam in hands of the refugees, the court examined the nature of aggression and concluded that undocumented migration cannot alone be the cause of external aggression further examining the traditional approach to external aggression which includes military or state backed invasions.

Allegations of infringement of Article 29, as to dilution of the unique Assamese culture by the refugees were also dismissed by the court stating that the rights of citizens here were not in any way hampered and the need of humanity and concerns of the humanitarian rights of the refugees could not be neglected.

The issue of temporal unreasonableness of section 6A (3) which granted the foreigner identified refugee, the Indian citizenship, after a time span of ten years was also dismissed by the court stating that the time span was reasonable to get mixed the refugees with the citizens. Whereas 6A (3) was held to be unconstitutional by the dissenting judge, Justice JB Pardiwala, where he states that the section 6A(3) is not in consonance with the objective for which it was inserted, that was early detection, deportation and conferment of citizenship.

The unconstitutionality of Section 6A (2) was also rejected by the court. It was put forward by the petitioners that this section lacked proper procedure for the refugees themselves to come forward and state their date of entry. To this the court stated that mere lack of procedure which could anyhow had been implemented by the executive, cannot render the amendment inserting Section 6A in the Citizenship Act to be unconstitutional.

It was also argued that the people have been enjoying the citizenship rights as de facto citizens for decades, now suddenly taking away the citizenship to give it back after ten years will be cumbersome and unreasonable perse. The threat of dual citizenship if a refugee had not given up his Bangladeshi citizenship was also in question. But the court did not find any merit in these arguments upholding Section 6A to be valid and constitutional.

The team at NorthEast PSC, the best APSC/ADRE coaching centre in Assam, hopes that this article gives a brief view of the issues raised by the petitioners and the stance taken by the Hon’ble court in Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha & Others vs Union of India, 2024.