Today (October 17, 2024), the Constitution bench of the Supreme Court (SC) of India upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, which deals with ‘Special provisions as to citizenship of persons covered by the Assam Accord,’ by 4:1 majority. The Constitution bench constituting Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, Justice MM Sundresh, Justice Surya Kant, Justice Manoj Misra, and Justice JB Pardiwala delivered the judgment today whereas CJI, Justice Sundresh, Justice Kant, Justice Misra gave majority view and Justice Pardiwala gave dissenting view. According to Section 6A of the Act, “Subject to the provisions of sub-sections (6) and (7), all persons of Indian origin who came before the 1st day of January 1966 to Assam from the specified territory (including such of those whose names were included in the electoral rolls used for the purposes of the General Election to the House of the People held in 1967) and who have been ordinarily resident in Assam since the dates of their entry into Assam shall be deemed to be citizens of India as from the 1st day of January 1966.”
CJI in his judgment said, “Assam Accord was a political solution to the issue of growing migration and Section 6A was a legislative solution.” He added, “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.” The majority also ruled that the cut-off date of March 25, 1971, was rational. CJI in his judgment also said, “...mere presence of different ethnic groups in a State is not sufficient to infringe the right guaranteed by Article 29(1)...The petitioner also ought to prove that the inability to take steps to conserve culture or language is attributable to the mere presence of different groups.” In a judgment authored by Justice Kant, including his, Justice Sundresh, and Justice Misra’s view, illustrated, “we thus hold that Section 6A falls within the bounds of the Constitution and does not contravene the foundational principles of fraternity, nor does it infringe upon Articles 6 and 7, Article 9, Article 14, Article 21, Article 29, Article 326, or Article 355 of the Constitution of India.” He concluded,
On the other hand, Justice Pardiwala in his dissenting opinion said, “Section 6A has acquired unconstitutionality with the efflux of time. The efflux of time has brought to light the element of manifest arbitrariness in the scheme of Section 6A(3) which fails to provide a temporal limit to its applicability.” The reasons given by him were:
Earlier in December 2023, the Supreme Court heard for four days the batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, and then reserved its verdict which was delivered today.