Guwahati: The plaintiff Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha along with many indigenous groups, has reportedly taken the legal opinion to appeal again before a nine-judge Constitution Bench in the coming days, the Supreme Court’s verdict that upheld the Constitutional validity of section 6A of Citizenship Act 1955 (thus recognizing the Assam Accord).
The Supreme Court ruling was passed by the five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices Surya Kant, MM Sundresh, Manoj Misra and JB Pardiwala with a 4:1 majority on October 17, 2024.
By upholding the contentious section added to the Citizenship Act in 2004 exclusively for the northeastern state, the apex court reinforced the legality of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise and upheld the validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act which grants citizenship to Bangladeshi immigrants who entered Assam before March 1971.
A body of Assam intelligentsia, the Patriotic People’s Front Assam (PPFA), also does not overrule the revision of the verdict under the law of the land. The forum of nationalist citizens in northeast India argued that a dissenting judgment (by Justice Pardiwala) may provide lawful space to go for a revision as the majority of Asomiya (Assamese) people felt disheartened by the verdict, if not All Assam Students’ Union, Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad, Asom Gana Parishad, Asom Sahitya Sabha, etc.
Lately, the PPFA appealed to the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership to rethink the stand in favour of illegal migrants (precisely millions of East Pakistani nationals, who entered Assam on or before 24 March 1971) for granting the citizenship of India and thus put the Assamese community in an increasingly troubled ambience.
With a simple logic of allotting a different cut-off year (than the national one) to detect the illegal migrants in Assam, the anti-India elements may find an opportunity to regain their space in the disturbed region, apprehended the PPFA statement.
The forum said that the deportation of illegal migrants has become too difficult nowadays because of various international complications, but that must not be an official presentation.
The BJP-led central government in New Delhi may also think of shifting a sizable portion of those East Pakistanis turned Indians to other parts of the country after their due detection (as being pre-1971 settlers in Assam). The initiative, though seems to be tricky at first glance, should be adopted meticulously with the support from all Assam-centric organisations to safeguard the future of Asomiya people in their own land, the PPFA concluded.
*Senior journalist