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Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal with Union Home Minister Amit Shah along with Nagaland Chief Minister N
the fourth conclave of the North East Democratic Alliance in Guwahati on September 9. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar
In the NRC case, the Supreme Court should have played the role of a neutral arbiter
1 of 7 30/10/19, 9:43 am
The NRC case: The Supreme Court's role - Frontline https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article29498707.ece
2 of 7 30/10/19, 9:43 am
The NRC case: The Supreme Court's role - Frontline https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article29498707.ece
entry of a foreign national who had surreptitiously crossed the Indian border
and that the court could not remain a mute spectator toFollow us on $ influx
the continuing %
of illegal migrants.
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Article 355 casts a duty upon the Centre to protect every State against
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external aggression and internal disturbance. Relying upon a 1998 report by
the Governor of Assam, the Supreme Court held in this case that there was a
flood of Bangladeshi migrants into Assam, which the Act could not check. If an
Act has the disastrous effect of giving shelter and protection to foreign
nationals who have illegally transgressed the international border and are
residing in India, any citizen is entitled to bring it to the notice of the court by
filing a writ petition, the court said. In effect, it justified the PIL filed by
Sonowal, whose political motives were questioned by the then Central and
Assam governments.
Foreigners (Tribunals) Amendment Order
In Sarbananda Sonowal (II) v Union of India, the Supreme Court bench
comprising Justices S.B. Sinha and P.K. Balasubramanyan struck down on
December 5, 2006, the Foreigners (Tribunals) Amendment Order, 2006, as
unnecessary and unreasonable. This order required the Foreigners Tribunal to
first consider whether there were sufficient grounds for proceeding against a
person suspected of being an illegal migrant and only on the Tribunal being
satisfied that the basic facts were prima facie established could a notice be
issued to the person concerned. This was not essential in the Foreigners
(Tribunals) Order, 1964, which the 2006 order sought to amend.
The Supreme Court held in Sonowal (II) that there was a lack of will in
ensuring that illegal immigrants were sent out of the country. It found the
2006 amendment Act, which sought to make the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order,
1964, inapplicable to Assam, discriminatory and violative of Article 14 of the
Constitution. The Centre submitted in this case that if it earlier had an option
to refer a matter to the tribunal, the 2006 amendment made it mandatory to
refer it to the tribunal without making any enquiry whatsoever. The Foreigners
Tribunal, being a quasi-judicial authority, would be in a better position to
judge whether there was a prima facie case against a suspected foreigner to
warrant issue of notice, it said. More significantly, the Centre claimed that
Article 21 of the Constitution was applicable to a person who had already set
foot in India, and therefore, he or she would be entitled to claim compliance of
the principles of natural justice.
However, the Supreme Court not only rejected the idea of making such a claim
but reiterated its view that uncontrolled immigration posed a threat to the
integrity of the nation. The court reasoned that all the facts required to prove
one’s citizenship, namely, date of birth, place of birth, name of parents and
3 of 7 30/10/19, 9:43 am
The NRC case: The Supreme Court's role - Frontline https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article29498707.ece
Vexed issue
A vexed issue was whether to grant citizenship purely by birth, and not by
descendance. Section 3(1)(a) of the Citizenship Act, 1955, deals with the
acquisition of citizenship by birth in the case of every person born in India on
or after January 26, 1950, but before July 1, 1987. The purport and effect of
this provision is pending consideration before a Constitution Bench of the
Supreme Court. The issues waiting for consideration are i) whether the
expression “every person born in India” would apply only to persons born to
Indian citizens and ii) whether the expression “either of whose parents is a
citizen of India at the time of his birth” in Section 3(1)(b) of the Citizenship
Act, 1955, would apply to only a person who is born to parents one of whom is
a citizen and the other a foreigner, provided he or she has entered India
lawfully and his/her stay in India is not in contravention of applicable Indian
laws.
Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, introduced through an amendment in 1985
following the Assam Accord, classified illegal migrants who entered Assam
from Bangladesh into three groups: those who entered the State before 1966;
those who came between 1966 and March 25, 1971 (the official date of the
commencement of the Bangladesh War); and those who entered after 1971.
The first group was to be granted citizenship. The second group was to be
granted citizenship after 10 years, while the third group was to be detected
and expelled in accordance with law. The constitutionality of Section 6A was
also challenged before the Supreme Court. This is pending resolution before
the same Constitution Bench which is likely to determine the validity of
Section 3 of the Act.
A large number of persons acquired citizenship by virtue of Section 6A of the
Act without being actually born within the territories of India. According to a
special procedure that came to be prescribed, the claims of all persons
(including persons born in India) for inclusion in the NRC were to be related to
the entries either in the NRC 1951 or any of the electoral rolls prepared up to
the midnight of March 24, 1971, or on the basis of any of the additional
documents that have been specified.
Although the resolution of these two issues by the Constitution Bench will
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The NRC case: The Supreme Court's role - Frontline https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article29498707.ece
have a bearing on the NRC process, the Supreme Court is not unduly worried
Follow
about the outcome to justify any delay in finalising the us list
NRC’s on of$eligible
%
citizens.
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If the Constitution Bench declares these two provisions of the Act
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unconstitutional, the NRC list, which was prepared on the assumption that
these are constitutional, would become untenable or at least be subjectto
changes by aggrieved citizens.
Stress on deportation
In all these, the Supreme Court’s repeated stress on deportations, in the words
of an observer, made the court appear to be more executive-minded than the
executive itself. The petition filed by the social activist Harsh Mander, for
instance, sought creation of humane conditions in detention centres. But the
bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi converted it to be a case
about deportations without any justification, and removed Mander from the
petition when he questioned its decision (see Interview on page 20). When the
Centre sought to release a small number of detainees from these detention
centres on fulfilment of certain conditions, the bench used the hearing of the
same petition to question the Centre’s move to release them rather than
deport. The Centre’s explanation that for deportation the host country’s
cooperation was required was not convincing enough to the bench.
To many people, the Supreme Court’s repeated enquiries about deportation
suggested not only an ignorance of the basic international law principles of
non-refoulement and against statelessness but also of the doctrine of
separation of powers. The Supreme Court’s role should have been one of a
neutral arbiter to check whether the government is exercising its discretion to
deport a person in consonance with the principles of customary international
law. Therefore, when the Supreme Court itself berates the government for its
so-called failure to deport people, the affected persons have no further legal
remedy of challenging an illegal deportation by the government. The recently
held People’s Tribunal in the capital on the issue has, in its interim report,
clearly brought this dilemma to the fore (see “Worrying signals”, page 22).
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