Constitution Bench to hear challenge to Section 6A of Citizenship Act on October 17

Subject: Polity

Section: Constitution

Context:

A Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud decided to hear from October 17 a series of petitions challenging the constitutionality of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955.

Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955:

Section 6A is a special provision inserted into the 1955 Act in furtherance of a Memorandum of Settlement called the ‘Assam Accord’ signed on August 15, 1985 by the then Rajiv Gandhi government with the leaders of the Assam Movement to preserve and protect the Assamese culture, heritage, linguistic and social identity.
Under Section 6A, foreigners who had entered Assam before January 1, 1966, and been “ordinarily resident” in the State, would have all the rights and obligations of Indian citizens. Those who had entered the State between January 1, 1966 and March 25, 1971 would have the same rights and obligations except that they would not be able to vote for 10 years.

Assam accord:

The Assam Accord was signed in 1985 between the Union government and the All Assam Students’ Union at the end of a 6-year-long agitation against the influx of migrants from Bangladesh into the state.
It determines who is a foreigner in the state of Assam.
The plea before the Supreme Court challenges one of the core elements of the Assam Accord and the basis of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, published in 2019.
- The final NRC in Assam which was published in 2019 was conducted with this cut-off date of 24 March 1971.
Clause 5 of the Assam Accord states that January 1, 1966 shall serve as the base cut-off date for the detection and deletion of “foreigners”.
But it also contains provisions for the regularization of those who arrived in the state after that date and up till March 24, 1971.

National Register of Citizens (NRC):

National Register of Citizens, 1951 is a register prepared after the conduct of the Census of 1951 in respect of each village, showing the houses or holdings in a serial order and indicating against each house or holding the number and names of persons staying therein.
The NRC was published only once in 1951 and since then, it has not been updated until 2019.
It has been updated in Assam only for now and the government plans to update it nationally as well.
The NRC of 1951 and the Electoral Roll of 1971 (up to midnight of 24 March 1971) are together called Legacy Data. Persons and their descendants whose names appeared in these documents are certified as Indian citizens.