Assam NRC | Supreme Court To Hear Challenge To Section 6A Citizenship Act From October 17

The Supreme Court today decided that it will commence hearing the batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 from October 17, 2023. The bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud along with Justices AS Bopanna, MM Sundresh, JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra had taken up the matter today to pass procedural directions. 

The bench noted that procedural directions had already been issued in the matter on January 10, 2023. It may be recalled that on January 10, the Supreme Court had framed the preliminary issue in the matter as - "Whether Section 6A of the Citizenship Act suffers from any constitutional infirmity?" and stated that the same covered all other issues that arose in the matter.

Today, the court stated that the title of the proceedings shall be– "In Re Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955". 

The bench further noted that the nodal counsels had prepared a common compilation in the matter. However, the common compilation had to be streamlined in terms of the Supreme Court's circular and a common index had to be prepared. Thus, the bench held–

"The soft copy of common compilation shall be prepared by 3rd October. Written submissions shall be filed by 10th October. We will start on the 17th October...We will at least have a flavour of the matter and then a week to do our own reading."

This matter concerns the challenge of the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act inserted by way of an amendment in 1985 in furtherance of the Assam Accord. Section 6A of the Citizenship Act is a special provision on the citizenship of persons covered by the Assam Accord and provides that the people who entered India between January 1, 1966, and March 25, 1971, and have been living in Assam, would be allowed to register themselves as citizens of India. Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha, a Guwahati based civil society organisation had challenged Section 6A way back in 2012. It argued that Section 6A is discriminatory, arbitrary, and illegal insofar as it provides for different cut-off dates for regularising illegal migrants who entered Assam and the rest of India. It sought the Court's indulgence in directing the concerned authority to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) with respect to the State of Assam based on the details incorporated in the NRC prepared in 1951 as opposed to updating the same by taking account of the electoral rolls prior to 24.03.1971. Eventually, other organisations from Assam filed petitions challenging the validity of Section 6A.