In a majority judgment, the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Amendment Act. The case pertains to the granting of Indian citizenship to illegal immigrants in Assam.

A five-member constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and comprising Justices Surya Kant, M.M. Sundresh, Manoj Misra, and J.B. Pardiwala has delivered a 4:1 verdict in this context.

Reading out the majority judgment, the bench asserted that the Assam Accord is a political solution to the problems of illegal migration

On Supreme Court’s judgement, Senior advocate Salman Khurshid said, “The Supreme Court has upheld the provisions of 6A that reflect on the accord of Assam. So whatever rights were recognized in 6A, those rights have been upheld by the Supreme Court.”

Earlier, a bench stated that Section 6A was introduced as a humanitarian measure following the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and is intricately interwoven in our history.

Timeline:

December 17, 2014: A case relating to citizenship in Assam was referred to the five-judge Constitution bench.

April 19, 2017: The bench was officially constituted by the top court to hear the case.

In 1985, the Indian government drafted and negotiated the Assam Accord with the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP), creating categories of immigrants. Section 6A was subsequently added to the Act in December 1985.

Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), introduced by the Indian Government in December 2019, sparked widespread protests across the country. It was introduced against the backdrop of the long-standing issues of illegal immigration from neighboring countries.