Guwahati: The Supreme Court of India’s (SC) five-judge constitution bench said that it would hear arguments on November 1 challenging the constitutionality of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, which deals with illegal immigration in Assam on Wednesday.
The matter was scheduled for hearing on November 1 by the panel of judges, which included Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, M.R. Shah, Krishna Murari, Hima Kohli, and P.S. Narasimha.
According to reports, senior lawyer Indira Jaising informed the Constitution Bench that one of the 10 legal points it was asked to consider was whether the matter’s hearing would be delayed if it would impact entrenched interests. She said that the same may be decided as a first-order matter.
However, according to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, this will need to be taken into account as part of the greater question of Section 6A’s legality.
The Assam Accord was a Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) that the leaders of the Assam Movement and officials of the Indian government signed. On August 15th, 1985, it was signed in New Delhi with the then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi present.
The Assam Accord was amended in 1985 to include Section 6A, which divided ‘illegal’ immigrants of Indian descent who entered Assam from Bangladesh into three categories.
17 petitions in all were submitted to the Supreme Court between 2009 and 2018. The SC referred a number of legal issues to in 2014.
A total of 17 petitions were submitted to the Supreme Court between 2009 and 2018. The SC referred a number of legal issues to a five-judge Constitution Bench in 2014. A bench had been established in 2017 to consider the petition, but there had been no hearing.