What is Section 6A of the Citizenship Act 1955?
Section 6A was inserted into the Citizenship Act as a special provision to deal with the citizenship of people covered under the 1985 Assam Accord signed by the then Rajiv Gandhi government with the All Assam Students Union (AASU), then headed by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, who later twice became chief minister of Assam.
It is referred in the law as “special provisions as to citizenship of persons covered by the Assam Accord”.
The provision provides that those who had come to Assam on or after January 1, 1966, but before March 25, 1971, from specified territories, including Bangladesh, and since then are residents of Assam, must register themselves under Section 18 for citizenship. These people were barred from registering as citizens of India for 10 years from the day of their detection as per the provision of the Assam Accord. As per Assam Accord, those who had come after March 25, 1971, are bound to be deported from India. As a result, the Section 6A fixes March 25, 1971, as the cut-off date for granting citizenship to migrants, particularly the ones from Bangladesh, residing in Assam.
Why the validity of Section 6A was challenged in the Supreme Court?
The Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha and many other petitioners challenged the provision, saying that it singles out Assam and has facilitated mass immigration. They claimed that Assam’s demography has changed drastically due to the citizenship being granted to immigrants who claim that they entered Assam before the March 25, 1971. They wanted 1951 as the cut-off year for detection and deportation of illegal immigrants from Assam. The petitioners had challenged Section 6A first in 2012 while arguing that Section 6A was discriminatory, arbitrary and illegal so far as it provides for different cut-off dates for regularising illegal migrants who entered Assam and the rest of India.
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