New Delhi – In a significant ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955. This decision comes from a Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud, which addressed multiple petitions challenging the legality of the section that was inserted to implement the Assam Accord and serves as the foundation for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. The hearings took place over several months, culminating in December last year when the five-judge Bench, which included Justices Surya Kant, M.M. Sundresh, J. B. Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra, reserved their judgment after thorough oral arguments from both sides.
During the proceedings, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that illegal immigrants often enter the country through clandestine means, complicating efforts to gather accurate data on such individuals. This argument highlighted the challenges faced by authorities in distinguishing between legal and illegal residents in the region. The Supreme Court had previously underscored that the essential question in the case was whether Section 6A of the Citizenship Act exhibits any constitutional deficiencies.
The amended provision stipulates that “all persons of Indian origin who came before the 1st day of January 1966 to Assam from the specified territory 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.” This ruling is expected to have far-reaching implications for citizenship rights and immigration policies in Assam and beyond, as it reinforces the framework established by the Assam Accord while addressing the ongoing debates surrounding illegal immigration and citizenship verification in the country.