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Synopsis

The Supreme Court of India today by a 4:1 majority has upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act. Justice JB Pardiwala has penned a dissenting opinion while, CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice Surya Kant, Justice MM Sundresh and Justice Manoj Misra have upheld the provision.

"Section 6A was included to reduce the influx of migrants into Assam..Parliament has treated migration into Assam as a cause of concern even before the Citizenship Amendment Act, 1955..", the CJI read out from his opinion today.

The CJI further said Section 6A is neither UNDERINCLUSIVE nor OVERINCLUSIVE and it is the duty of the Union to safeguard states against external aggression.

In December last year, Supreme Court had reserved its verdict in the pleas pertaining to Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC), which challenged the constitutional validity of Section 6A.

Last year, the Union government had claimed before the Supreme Court that illegal migrants entered into the country through Assam and other states without valid travel documents in a clandestine and surreptitious manner, so it is not possible to collect accurate data of such people.

While hearing the submissions on behalf of State of Assam, a CJI DY Chandrachud led bench had also asked the Central government about the steps it was going to take to make the Bangladesh Border impermeable.

"What are we doing from here onwards to ensure that we have an impermeable border..what are the executive steps that the government of India is taking..because this is a crucial problem independent of 6A..", asked the constitution bench.

Section 6A is a special provision on the citizenship of persons covered by the Assam Accord and provides that the people who entered India between January 1, 1966, and March 25, 1971, and have been living in Assam, would be allowed to register themselves as citizens of India.

Calling out this provision to be discriminatory, a direction was sought to the concerned authority to update the NRC based on the details incorporated in the NRC prepared in 1951 as opposed to updating the same by taking account of the electoral rolls prior to March 24, 1971.

Case Title: In Re Section 6A of the Citizenship Act