Justice Pardiwala dissents: Passage of time made Section 6A of the Citizenship Act invalid, more prone to abuse

Dealing with Section 6A(3) of the Act – it pertains to registration of a idiosyncratic of Indian root who came to Assam betwixt January 1, 1966 and March 25, 1971, has been ordinarily a nonmigratory successful Assam since introduction and has been detected to beryllium a foreigner by a Tribunal – the judgement said “neither Section 6A nor the rules made thereunder prescribe immoderate outer time-limit for the completion of detection of each specified persons” and this has “two-fold adverse consequences”.

“First, it relieves the authorities from the load of efficaciously identifying, detecting, and deleting from the electoral rolls, successful accordance with law, each immigrants of the 1966-71 stream. Secondly, it incentivises the immigrants belonging to the 1966-71 watercourse to proceed to stay connected the electoral rolls for an indefinite play and lone get themselves registered nether Section 6A erstwhile detected by a competent tribunal. Hence, the mode successful which the proviso is worded, counter-serves the precise intent of its enactment, which is the speedy and effectual recognition of foreigners of the 1966-71 stream, their deletion from the electoral rolls, registration with the registering authorization and conferring of regular citizenship,” Justice Pardiwala said.

Official of National Register of Citizens (NRC) cheque the antithetic documents to support successful systematic mode successful boxes which are submitted by radical for National Register of Citizens (NRC) up of the merchandise of the last draught of NRC connected 31st August 2019. (Express photo)

His ruling said it “was ne'er meant to support the presumption quo regarding the immigrants of the 1966-71 stream. It was enacted with the entity of achieving en masse deletion of this class of immigrants from the electoral rolls consequent to which de jure citizenship was to beryllium conferred connected them aft a cooling-off play of 10 years”.

Justice Pardiwala noted that “placing temporal limitations connected the benefits disposable nether Section 6A appears to person been 1 of the objects of the authorities – arsenic different the proviso would spell against the tone of the Assam Accord”.

He said “even the licence system, which was brought successful aft the partition of the state to let the immigrants from Pakistan to migrate to India, had a temporal bounds to its applicability” and “seen successful this context, it appears to maine to beryllium unreasonable wherefore Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, which excessively was brought successful to woody with a one-time bonzer situation, should beryllium allowed to proceed for each times to come”.

The ruling said, “continuance of the workout of detection indefinitely without immoderate temporal limitations promotes the immigrants to enactment successful Assam, and the immigrants residing successful the neighbouring states to travel into Assam successful the anticipation of ne'er being detected arsenic a foreigner, oregon of mounting up a defence nether Section 6A of the Citizenship Act upon recognition to assertion its benefit”.

Justice Pardiwala was of the “considered opinion” that “the open-ended quality of Section 6A has, with the transition time, go much prone to maltreatment owed to the advent of forged documents to establish, inter-alia, incorrect day of introduction into Assam, inaccurate lineage, falsified authorities records created by corrupt officials, dishonest corroboration of the day of introduction by different relatives truthful arsenic to assistance amerciable immigrants who are different not eligible nether Section 6A by virtuousness of having entered into Assam aft 24.03.1971.”

He said “while the entity that was sought to beryllium achieved agelong backmost with the assistance of the enactment of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act remained a distant dream, its misuse has lone continued to summation with the efflux of time.”

Justice Pardiwala ruled that “Assam Accord was a one-time governmental settlement, arrived astatine successful the circumstantial discourse of wide unit and agitation successful Assam. The bonzer conditions existing successful the years 1979-85 cannot supply a imperishable and perennial crushed for continuation of a manifestly arbitrary provision, which is uncertain and indeterminable owing to its sui generis mechanism.”