Supreme Court  to give ruling on the Citizenship Act’s Section 6A challenge today

News Mania / Piyal Chatterjee / 17th October 2024

On Thursday, a five-judge Supreme Court Constitution bench will rule on the constitutionality of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, which awarded citizenship to foreigners who arrived in Assam prior to March 24, 1971.
After the Rajiv Gandhi government at the center and the All Assam Students’ Union signed the Assam Accord in 1985, the clause was introduced to the legislation. A six-year campaign against the immigration of Bangladeshi migrants into Assam culminated in the agreement. The decision is anticipated to provide important answers about the rights of “indigenous” Assamese people and the granting of citizenship to foreigners.

The Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, the NGO Assam Public Works, and others are among the petitioners, who contend that it is “discriminatory, arbitrary, and illegal” to set a different deadline for citizenship in Assam. Additionally, they assert that the rights of indigenous Assamese people to preserve their culture under Article 29 of the Constitution will be impacted by the state’s shifting demography.

Their petition, filed in 2012, states that “the application of Section 6A to the State of Assam alone has led to a perceptible change in the demographic pattern of the State and has reduced the people of Assam to a minority in their own State. The same is detrimental to the economic and political well-being of the State and acts as a potent force against the cultural survival, political control and employment opportunities…”

The Constitution’s Article 11, which grants Parliament the authority “to make any provision with respect to the acquisition and termination of citizenship and all other matters relating to citizenship,” has been invoked by the Center. The NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace was among the other respondents who contended that if Section 6A is overturned, a sizable portion of the population will become “stateless” after having citizenship rights for more than 50 years.