NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday fixed January 10 for hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the contentious Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, enacted in furtherance of the Assam Accord of 1985, which allowed grant of citizenship to those persons of Indian origin from Bangladesh entering Assam before January 1, 1966.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices M R Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha asked lead senior advocates from the petitioners’ side — Kapil Sibal, Dushyant Dave — to coordinate with attorney general R Venkataramani and solicitor general Tushar Mehta in segregating issues with connected petitions, 17 of which were filed between 2009 and 2018.
After a prolonged student’s agitation against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, the government led by Rajiv Gandhi, had signed an accord with student leaders in 1985 which required amendment to Section 6 of the Citizenship Act.
The amended Section 6A provided that “all persons of Indian origin who came before the 1st day of January, 1966 to Assam from the specified territory (including such of those whose names were included in the electoral rolls used for the purposes of the General Election to the House of the People held in 1967) 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”.
On December 17, 2014, a bench of then CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justice R F Nariman had framed 13 issues and referred their adjudication to a five-judge bench.
