Latest news with #Immigrants(ExpulsionfromAssam)Act
The Hindu
25-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
How Assam's Pushback Politics is Weaponising Citizenship
Published : Jun 25, 2025 08:58 IST - 14 MINS READ In a special one-day session of the Assam Assembly on June 9, 2025, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma invoked an old 1950 Act to declare that his government would henceforth push back into Bangladesh anyone who had illegally entered Assam after March 24, 1971, and had been identified as a foreigner if her/his case was not pending before a court. He said it would be done under the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, without involving the Foreigners Tribunals (FTs). (The special Assembly session had been convened to adopt a resolution to rename Dibrugarh Airport after the Assamese music legend Bhupen Hazarika.) Sarma said that while his BJP-led government would also pursue cases pending before the FTs, it would simultaneously intensify the 'pushbacks'. Sarma justified his decision to bypass the FTs by referring to the Supreme Court's October 2024 judgment delivered by a five-member Constitutional Bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud, in which the majority verdict upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, which makes March 24, 1971, the cut-off date for citizenship in Assam. By this judgment, he claimed, the court had given the Assam government 'sweeping power'. It meant, he asserted, that the government need not go to FTs for expulsion of foreigners and, instead, District Commissioners could be empowered to evict anyone who was prima facie found to be a 'foreigner'. The June 9 announcement came in the face of a pushback attempt in May that went awry when a batch of people were stranded in no man's land along the international boundary, sparking tensions between the border forces of both countries. Subsequently, some of them were brought back to India after their families submitted documents of their cases pending in the Supreme Court and the Gauhati High Court. The cases challenged the FT verdicts that had declared them foreigners. Also Read | Legal yet lawless: Assam's new wave of deportations follows a long tradition of expulsion politics In the special session, Sarma claimed that 330 'foreigners' had been 'pushed back' into Bangladesh in the past couple of weeks and none of them had returned, and another 35 people would be pushed back soon. He, however, admitted that a few individuals whose cases were pending in courts had been wrongly evicted but later brought back through diplomatic channels. The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act authorises District Commissioners to order the direct expulsion of an individual or a class of people from India or Assam, bypassing the tribunal process, if they are suspected to be foreigners who have entered illegally. Sarma said that the Act exempts those people who have entered Assam to escape religious persecution. 'Provided that nothing in this section shall apply to any person who on account of civil disturbances or the fear of such disturbances in any area now forming part of Pakistan has been displaced from or has left his place of residence in such area and who has been subsequently residing in Assam,' the Act says. Sarma's reference to this clause presumably implies that Hindu migrants from Bangladesh will be left alone regardless of the legality of their entry. Indeed, on July 5, 2024, Sarma's government issued instructions to the Border Police wing of the Assam Police not to refer cases of Hindu and other non-Muslim 'illegal migrants' who entered India before December 31, 2014, to FTs. A separate register was to be maintained for this category. There were also instructions that such people may be advised to apply online for Indian citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. A video of the group of 14 people who had been declared foreigners by FTs and stranded in no man's land on the Bangladesh border surfaced in social media in May. This drew public attention to the way the police in Assam were picking up, apparently at random, people whose citizenship cases were pending in court. While the Border Security Force (BSF) pushed them to the zero line on the international border, the Border Guards of Bangladesh (BGB) prevented them from crossing it. Khairul Islam, who was part of the group, narrated to media outlets the ordeal of spending a whole day under the scorching sun in a paddy field. He said they were taken to a BGB camp in Kurigram district of Bangladesh on the evening of May 24. It was when his wife came across the video clip that she approached the police in Morigaon with documents to prove that his case was pending before the Supreme Court. The police assured her that he would be brought back. Islam, a former teacher of a government school, had moved the Supreme Court challenging the Gauhati High Court order that upheld the FT opinion declaring him a foreigner in 2016. He spent two years in Tezpur Central Jail after the High Court upheld the FT opinion and was subsequently released in 2020. The BGB handed over Islam and six others to the BSF on May 25. Islam was taken to the Matia Transit Camp in Assam's Goalpara district, the country's largest detention centre, from where, he alleges, he was forcibly picked up along with the others for the pushback exercise. Move to facilitate arming of 'indigenous' people Meanwhile, in a move that has drawn strong objections from the opposition, Sarma's government decided at a Cabinet meeting on May 28, 2025, to grant arms licences to 'original inhabitants and indigenous Indian citizens' living in vulnerable and remote areas where they are in a 'minority'. At a press conference following the meeting, Sarma said that in districts such as Dhubri, Morigaon, Nagaon, Barpeta, and South Salmara-Mankachar, Muslims whose origins could be traced back to the erstwhile East Bengal now constituted the majority. He clarified that the arms licence policy would not be applicable in areas along inter-State boundaries. Assam shares boundaries with Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Manipur, and West Bengal. Ironically, the social reality in the areas mentioned by Sarma is that the majority of the so-called migrant Muslims identified by the Chief Minister have consistently reported Assamese as their mother tongue in successive census records, and their children are mostly educated in Assamese-medium government schools. The legal question of who is an 'indigenous' person in Assam for the purpose of ascertaining constitutional safeguards, land rights, and reservation in accordance with the Assam Accord is yet to be settled for want of consensus on the definition of the term and the reference period. The State government's latest moves to tackle the foreigners' issue has drawn sharp criticism from the opposition. The Congress' Debabrata Saikia, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, wrote to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on May 30 seeking intervention by the Central government 'to immediately halt these unconstitutional actions, ensure proper nationality verification before any deportation, release all wrongly detained Indian citizens, and make detainee information publicly available'. He wrote: 'Pushing Indian citizens into no man's land without verification is unconstitutional and fundamentally inhumane. The repatriation during the pendency of a Supreme Court case constitutes a grave breach of the judicial process. This further violates international human rights standards.' A release issued by Saikia's office said the letter noted with concern that these operations appeared to target Muslim communities, undermining India's secular fabric. The letter also alleged that the Assam Police had arbitrarily detained hundreds of Indian citizens not involved in any citizenship-related legal proceedings. 'While most detainees were eventually released, their wrongful apprehension itself points to serious procedural lapses. Families remain uninformed about the whereabouts of detainees, violating basic transparency norms,' it said. Saikia reminded the External Affairs Minister that such action directly contradicted India's stated position on deportation, quoting Jaishankar's own statement in Parliament emphasising the necessity of 'unambiguous verification of nationality' before any repatriation. Opposition parties have also vehemently opposed the decision to grant arms licences to 'original inhabitants' and 'indigenous people'. Calling it a 'dangerous step towards lawlessness and jungle raj', Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Gaurav Gogoi said on his X handle on May 29: 'People of Assam deserve jobs, affordable healthcare, quality education, not guns. Instead of strengthening police and border forces, the government is intent on distributing arms among BJP-RSS sympathisers and local criminal syndicates. This will lead to gang violence and crimes based on personal vendetta. Local business and traders are bound to be harassed.' Gogoi is Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and represents the Jorhat constituency. Saikia has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah appealing for immediate reversal of the decision. He has called for strengthening professional law enforcement mechanisms instead of promoting the arming of civilians. He has asserted that Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees all citizens equal protection under law and said community-specific arms distribution is fundamentally discriminatory. He has expressed grave concern that this decision comes when Assam has finally achieved relative stability after decades of insurgency and conflict. He has warned about dangerous demographic implications and said selective arming of people can deepen existing social divides and potentially create new armed factions. Himanta Biswa Sarma confident of his strategy Sarma, however, is sticking to his position and insists that grant of arms licence has been a long-pending demand of indigenous Assamese people since the anti-foreigner agitation of 1979-85. The policy, he says, is in line with the BJP's commitment to protect jati (nationality), mati (land), and bheti (foundation) of indigenous people. A Cabinet note on the policy stated: 'The scheme will act as deterrent to unlawful threats and enhance the personal security and confidence of such individual and communities.' Sarma says the decision should have been taken in 1985 (the year of the Assam Accord) and many indigenous people would not have been forced to leave places where they had lived for long if it had been done. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which formed the first regional party government in 1985, is a junior partner in the BJP-led government headed by Sarma, as it was in the Sarbananda Sonowal government. The AGP could not complete its first five-year term. President's Rule was imposed on November 27, 1990, on the grounds of deterioration in law and order following a spurt in insurgent activities by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). Governor D.D. Thakur wrote to the President on November 26, 1990, seeking President's Rule. His letter said that 'about 1,600 firing weapons which had been ordered to be deposited with the D.M. [District Magistrate] by the licence holders, were snatched away by ULFA activists' (Peoples Union for Human Rights v. Union of India (UoI) And Ors on 20 March, 1991. Equivalent citations: AIR1992GAU23, AIR 1992 GAUHATI 23, (1991) 2 GAU LR 1, source Sarma's term in office has been consistently marked by aggressive posturing on the issue of 'foreigners' displacing indigenous Assamese people. Speaking on various occasions and platforms, he has been trying to make an emotive pitch by saying 'Assamese people have to take a non-compromising stance' to protect themselves. 'Modiji is saying 'pushback', but Assamese people are questioning why pushback is happening. Modiji is willing to lend all help, but he alone cannot protect us,' he said on one occasion. Sarma says pushbacks will act as a deterrent against infiltration from Bangladesh. The 'White Paper on Foreigners' Issue' brought out by the Tarun Gogoi–led Congress government in 2012 explains the difference between 'pushback' and 'deportation' thus: 'In case of Push Back there is no need for acceptance of the person concerned by the BGB. In case of Deportation, on the other hand, there is flag meeting between BSF and BGB and the deportation takes place only when the BGB accepts the foreigner. If BGB refuses to accept the foreigner, BSF is left with no option and such person becomes stateless.' 'Pushbacks' are not exactly novel Between 1961 and 1964, the then Bimala Prasad Chaliha-led Congress government pushed back over 1.78 lakh 'infiltrators' to erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The White Paper states that the Registrar General of Census in his report on the 1961 Census assessed that 2,20,691 'infiltrants' had entered Assam. 'In the light of this report of Census 1961 coupled with intelligence reports, police launched a drive in 1962-1964 to detect and deport such infiltrators. By mid-1964, the State government had also set up four tribunals through an executive order to cover those cases of suspected infiltrants who claimed to be Indian. These tribunals were headed by special officers with judicial background who were appointed to scrutinise cases of infiltrants before issuing Quit India notices.' The document further states: 'During the period 1961-1966 approximately, 1,78,952 infiltrants were either deported or had voluntarily left the country, but an estimated 40,000 did not leave India. The police drive, which commenced in mid-1962 against infiltrators, continued but invited criticism from some leaders of Assam. Pakistan also threatened to drag the issue to the United Nations.' Kamal Nayan Choudhury, an expert on the Constitution, believes illegal immigrants are not entitled to due legal process: 'When it comes to detecting illegal migrants, why are the police making a reference to tribunals? Is it necessary? No. Persons whose entry into a country is illegal are called 'alien at will' and they are not entitled to due process of law under international law.' He argued that only people who had overstayed but had originally entered legally should be referred to tribunals. According to him, those who entered Assam illegally should be dealt with under the Act of 1950. Choudhury believes the promulgation of the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964, has hindered the process of identifying foreigners. 'The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, is a special law to deal with expulsion of illegal migrants from Assam, whereas the Foreigners Act, 1946, is a general law dealing with entry, stay, and departure of a foreigner. In the context of the Foreigners Act, 1946, it is incomprehensible how the 1964 order could be framed,' he said. Communal disturbances in Dhubri and Lakhimpur Recent communal disturbances in Assam have lent grist to the Hindutva mill. There was trouble in Dhubri during Eid celebrations on June 7 after a cow's head was apparently found dumped in front of a Hanuman temple. Thirty-eight people were arrested in connection with this incident. On a visit to Dhubri on June 14 to review the law and order situation, Sarma issued shoot-at-sight orders against anyone trying to create trouble. He told the media that three posters by an outfit called 'Nabin Bangla' had been found in the town and these indicated an agenda of 'annexing' Dhubri to Bangladesh. Also Read | In Assam, 'indigenous' means many things—until it means Muslim Before the tensions in Dhubri could dissipate, seven people were arrested in Lakhimpur district on June 18, the day after three cattle skulls were found about 30 metres from a naamghar (traditional Assamese prayer hall). Sarma revealed the names of the arrested men—all Muslims—on X. Responding to media questions on the incidents in Dhubri and Lakhimpur, he made a statement that drew widespread criticism: 'My recommendation is that if someone keeps beef, you should keep pork meat. It will make it even then.' On June 10, the Chief Minister shared a video clip on X of his speech made on the occasion of the submission of the report by the Satra Ayog constituted by his government to assess the problem of encroachment on Satra land. He wrote: 'Minorities should respect the traditions and customs of the indigenous people and not try to create a conflict by building Masjids near Satras [Vaishnavite monasteries] and occupying Satra land. Dhubri, Barpeta, etc. are an example of such templates and we should not let this be repeated.' In the video he alleged that cow slaughter, beef consumption, and land grabbing were being used to push away local people from Satra land and announced that his government would constitute a permanent Satra Commission and empower it financially and administratively. With less than a year left for the 2026 Assembly election, Assam is suffering a polarised build-up of emotions. A dangerous discourse is being shaped by an intensified pushback of suspected Bangladeshi Muslims while arming indigenous people and fashioning 'beef weaponisation' and Satra land encroachment narratives as existential threats to Assamese Hindus. Sushanta Talukdar is a senior independent journalist based in Guwahati who has extensively covered the north-eastern region. Formerly a writer with The Hindu, he currently edits a bilingual online magazine called
Indian Express
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
In CM Himanta Sarma's black and white ‘anti-foreigner' drive, how a 1950 law's greys fit in
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that his government has decided to bring into action a 1950 law to 'push back' into Bangladesh any people whom district commissioners in their respective areas 'prima facie find' to be foreigners, without going through the state's existing system of Foreigners' Tribunals (FTs). While doing so, he invoked a key Supreme Court judgment from October 2024, saying that the apex court 'empowered' the state to pursue this course of action. This announcement comes at a time when the state is already in the process of 'pushing back' people declared foreigners by FTs, having deported hundreds through an informal process in the past three weeks. The 1950 law that Sarma was referring to is the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act. A look at the extent to which it has been implemented in the past, where does it feature amidst the tangle of various citizenship processes in Assam, and what the Supreme Court said about it: The IEAA was a legislation drafted by the Centre – coming into effect on March 1, 1950 – following pressure from the Assam government at the time for measures to check migration from then East Pakistan in the years following Partition. Migration into the region was already a key political issue by then, as it is now, 75 years later. The Union government drafted the law as citizenship was a Central subject, and delegated powers to the state to expel 'undesirable' migrants – the legislation was originally even called the Undesirable Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act. In the uncertain socio-political aftermath of Partition, the Act sought to distinguish between migrants and refugees, stating that it shall not apply to any person displaced 'on account of civil disturbances or the fear of such disturbances in any area now forming part of Pakistan'. The Act added that if the Centre was of the opinion that the stay of any person in Assam – who was ordinarily resident of any place outside India and had come either before or after the commencement of the Act – 'is detrimental to the interests of the general public of India or any section thereof or of any Scheduled Tribe in Assam', it could direct such a person to 'remove himself or themselves' from Assam or India 'within such time and by such route as may be specified in the order.' The IEAA said any officer of the Union government or Assam government could exercise this power. Its implementation turned out to be short-lived. In his book The Quest for Modern Assam, historian Arupjyoti Saikia wrote that at the same time as this Act was finalised, parts of Lower Assam saw rioting between Hindus and Muslims, with anywhere between 40,000 and 1 lakh Muslims from these areas fleeing to East Pakistan. The Act hence posed problems for many Bengali Muslims who originally were from Assam, Saikia wrote, adding. '… when an old resident was asked to leave his residence in an Upper Assam town within three days (of such an order being issued to the resident) Nehru was furious'. This incidentally also coincided with the pact signed between Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Pakistani counterpart Liaquat Ali Khan to ensure the security and rights of minorities in the respective territories of Pakistan and India. On April 10, two days after the pact was signed, Nehru wrote to Assam Chief Minister Gopinath Bardoloi to stop all action under the IEAA, saying the Pakistani PM had also raised the Act in their talks. '… it would be most unwise to take any action under that Act (the IEAA) now. Our main purpose is to concentrate on getting full control (over) the situation in East and West Bengal and Assam and to remove the sense of fear from the minorities. Everything else should be subordinated to this. If we cannot succeed in this, then all kinds of other problems will overwhelm us,' Nehru wrote to Bordoloi. According to different accounts, the numbers of those affected by the IEAA remained a couple of hundred. In 1983, the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act came into force, with its provisions stating that it would have overriding effects over the 1950 Act. The IMDT Act laid out the process of determination of the nationality of a suspected illegal immigrant through tribunals and, importantly, put the onus of proving the nationality or otherwise of the person concerned on the complainant. More than 20 years after the IMDT Act was passed, the IEAA saw a revival after the Supreme Court struck down the IMDT Act as unconstitutional. In a 2005 judgment, the Court held that the IEAA, along with the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, the Foreigners' Act, 1946, and the Passport Act, 1967 – all of which the IMDT Act had been given overriding powers over – 'shall apply to the state of Assam'. The Court also said that all pending cases in this regard be shifted to FTs operating on the lines of the Foreigners' Tribunal Order 1964, thus shifting the burden of proof to the accused. FTs are quasi-judicial bodies which determine whether a person presented before them – usually referred by the border police or if listed as 'D-voters' or 'Doubtful Voters' in electoral rolls – is a 'foreigner' or an Indian citizen. Those declared foreigners have the option to appeal in the Gauhati High Court or the Supreme Court. In 1985, in line with the Assam Accord, the Citizenship Act had been amended to include Section 6A, which essentially established March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date after which anyone entering the state would be considered an 'illegal immigrant'. The constitutional validity of this was challenged in 2012, on the grounds that there could not be different cut-off dates for Indian citizenship in Assam and in the rest of India, for which it is July 1948. The petition also urged that 1951 be established as the cut-off date for inclusion in a National Register of Citizens to be prepared for Assam, instead of 1971. Hearing the plea, a two-judge Supreme Court Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Rohinton Nariman framed 13 questions on Section 6A for deliberation by a Constitutional Bench. One of these was on the IEAA. In 2024, the Constitutional Bench said that the petitioners' case was that, in the case of Assam, the IEEA should override the Foreigners' Act, 1946 – which ordinarily governs the entry, stay and departure of foreigners in India – and Section 6A, presuming a conflict between these legislations. The Court said that all these enactments can be read 'harmoniously'. By a 4-1 majority, the Court also upheld the Constitutional validity of Section 6A. But noting that the restriction of immigration post-1971 had 'not been given proper effect', issued a set of six directions, including: 'The provisions of the IEAA 1950 shall also be read into Section 6A and shall be effectively employed for the purpose of identification of illegal immigrants.' As per CM Sarma, the Supreme Court order affirmed that the long-defunct IEAA remained in force and it empowered the state to 'push back' people that district commissioners 'prima facie find' to be illegal immigrants, without referring them to FTs for scrutiny and determination of the same. Senior Advocate at the Gauhati High Court and Congress member Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Chaudhury expressed the apprehension that the implementation of this would be 'arbitrary' and result in 'a large-scale law and order situation'. 'The 1950 Act had been introduced in an extraordinary situation to deal with a particular purpose. It also categorically mentions that the presence of the persons concerned should be found to be detrimental to the interests of the country. But there was still arbitrariness built in, and the FTs had been introduced to deal with the arbitrariness,' Chaudhary said. He added that citizenship in India was overall determined by the Citizenship Act. 'The 1950 Act continues to exist alongside all these frameworks and provisions… By interpreting things in this way, the CM is trying to bypass all legal procedures for the harassment of a particular community. These actions cannot be taken on a whim, they have to be through settled procedure,' the advocate said. Supreme Court Advocate-on-Record Anas Tanwir also said that 'any expulsion without following the FT process would be contrary to law'. 'As the court states, these legislation are operating in different spheres. Because the court is saying that they can be read harmoniously doesn't mean that the Act can be used to the exclusion of existing processes and for expulsion,' he said.
Indian Express
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
In Assam, deportation shouldn't be wielded for narrow ends
The Assam government's decision to operationalise the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, to deport individuals identified as 'foreigners' by district collectors — without reference to Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) — raises urgent questions about the rule of law, institutional checks, and the rights of the vulnerable. While Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has referred to the Supreme Court's October 2024 judgment upholding Section 6A of the Citizenship Act to justify the move, citing legality cannot mask the moral and constitutional peril of bypassing due process. Illegal immigration poses a clear and present danger. But as Opposition MLAs have rightly pointed out, the state government's move risks arbitrariness and the possibility of communal profiling, bracketing innocent people, especially those from vulnerable communities, alongside the undocumented. In recent weeks, Assam has, by Sarma's own estimate, deported 330 people to Bangladesh. The resurrection of the 1950 Act would, the CM said, aid in scaling up his government's pushback against outsiders in the state. The SC's 2024 judgment did affirm that the 1950 Act could be read alongside Section 6A to strengthen the identification of and action against illegal immigrants. But it did so within the architecture of existing laws and procedures. It did not dismantle the existing framework of FTs, nor did it authorise summary expulsions on the basis of a bureaucrat's suspicions, even if the person is listed in the NRC. This distinction is crucial because any other interpretation reduces justice to executive discretion and threatens the foundational right of every individual to be heard. The Northeast, particularly Assam, sits at the heart of a complex and emotionally charged border history. Since Partition and the subsequent creation of Bangladesh, waves of migration have triggered identity anxieties and fuelled political movements, including the Assam agitation of the 1980s. The porous border has served as a conduit not only for desperate people fleeing hardship and persecution, but also for elements that threaten security and communal harmony. These realities, however, demand vigilance, and should be addressed with deliberation, not shortcuts. Even with the institutional mechanism of FTs, there have been disquieting stories of administrative failures. Sarma's polarising rhetoric of flood jihad and land jihad in reference to the migrant crisis, too, has often served to deepen communal divides. With elections coming up in Assam in a year's time, it becomes even more imperative to ensure that deportation is not wielded for ideological or electoral ends. Security threats, whether from foreign or domestic elements or geopolitical pressures, remain a priority that must be addressed with due seriousness. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs' order to crack down on undocumented foreigners, especially those from Bangladesh and Myanmar, has seen heightened action across several parts of the country. But in a region scarred by displacement, suspicion, and historical trauma, the government must distinguish between genuine security action and sweeping administrative moves that could serve political narratives more than public safety. The rule of law demands that the vulnerable — those without voice, power, or access to legal recourse — not be made collateral damage in the name of internal security.
NDTV
10-06-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Explained: The 1950 Act That Lets Assam Expel Foreigners Directly
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said the state was actively considering using a long-forgotten law from 1950 to directly expel illegal migrants without going through the courts. The law in question, the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, empowers even a district commissioner to issue an order for the immediate removal of a person identified as an illegal immigrant. What Is The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950? The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, was enacted by the Parliament in the early years of independence to address a pressing crisis in Assam. During the years after the Partition in 1947, Assam witnessed a massive influx of immigrants from East Bengal, which later became East Pakistan and then Bangladesh. The migration was largely driven by communal violence, displacement and the open border. To tackle this issue, the IEAA was passed on 1 March 1950. It gave the Central Government the power to remove any person or group from Assam if their presence harmed public interest or affected the rights of Scheduled Tribes. The law also allowed the government to give these powers to local officers, such as district commissioners, so they could issue expulsion orders directly, without going through the courts. The law was applicable across India but tailored to Assam. Over time, the law was mostly ignored. When the Assam Movement started in 1979, led by the All Assam Students' Union (AASU), people again raised strong concerns about illegal migration. This led to the Assam Accord in 1985, which decided that anyone who came into Assam after March 24, 1971, would be treated as a foreigner. This Act predates several key legislations that are currently used to deal with immigration issues in India, such as the Foreigners Act, 1946; Section 6A of the Citizenship Act; the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964; the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920; and the Passport Act, 1967. In October 2024, the Supreme Court of India upheld Section 6A of the Citizenship Act and clearly said that the 1950 Act was still valid. A Constitution Bench of five judges pointed out that the law allowed even a district commissioner to order the removal of illegal immigrants. The court said this Act can work alongside the Citizenship Act and the Foreigners Act to detect and deport illegal migrants. What Himanta Sarma Said "For whatever reason, our lawyers had not informed us about [the law], and we weren't aware of it either," Mr Sarma said, as reported by The Times Of India. Now that this has come to attention, the government is seriously discussing it, he said. He added that the state had already begun preparations over the last few days to act on this provision. "This time, if someone is identified as a foreigner, we will not send them to a tribunal. We will straightaway push them back." He clarified that those who have already moved court will not be affected by this. Himanta Sarma said that the process of identifying foreigners, which had slowed down due to complications around the National Register of Citizens (NRC), will now be sped up by using the legal powers available under this old but still valid Act.
Hindustan Times
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Nearly 300 illegal Bangladeshis pushed back from Assam, says CM Himanta Sarma
GUWAHATI: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Monday that his government has pushed back nearly 300 illegal Bangladeshis to the neighbouring country in the past few months. Addressing a one-day special session of the state assembly, Sarma said that the process to push them back will continue as per provisions of a 1950 law to identify and evict illegal foreigners. 'We will adopt two roads to deal with illegal foreigners. One is to take their cases to foreigners tribunals and the other to use provisions of the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950,' Sarma said. 'We have pushed back almost 300 people till now and none of them have returned. This process will be intensified and way fundamentalist elements from Bangladesh have taken roots in Assam, the government needs to be more active and proactive in this regard,' he added. Sarma stated that his government has decided to enforce provisions of the 1950 Act into action and empower district commissioners to identify and push back illegal Bangladeshis without referring to the foreigners tribunals. Assam has 100 such tribunals where people deemed to be illegal foreigners and who have entered the state after March 25, 2025 (the deadline set to identify illegal immigrants in the state) are referred to and their cases heard. Once they are declared as foreigners by these tribunals they are sent to detention centres set up for such illegal foreigners. They have the option of appealing their cases in higher courts with proper documents. In recent weeks, following directives from the union home ministry, several state governments, especially those ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have started drives to detect illegal Bangladeshis and initiate a process to deport them. Many such people, who are allegedly illegal Bangladeshis, have been pushed back to the no man's land between India and Bangladesh through the borders in Assam, Tripura and West Bengal. Last week, Bangladesh had refused to accept 14 such people from Assam, who were again sent back.
