Citizenship Amendment Act does not violate Assam accord, cultural rights of Northeast: Centre

The Central Government has informed the Supreme Court that the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 does not violate the indigenous peoples' cultural rights in Assam and the North Eastern States.

The Ministry of Home Affairs stated in an additional counter-affidavit filed in the Supreme Court specifically addressing issues raised in relation to North-Eastern states that "there is no provision in CAA which would affect the distinct language, script or culture of citizens of Assam and other North-Eastern States".
According to the MHA, the Act is intended to protect members of the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, or Christian communities who migrated from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, or Pakistan before the December 31, 2014 cut-off date. It went on to say that the Act does not encourage migration and only applies to people who entered India before the specified cut-off date.

The MHA dismissed concerns raised by the All Assam Students Union and other Assam-based petitioners that the CAA violates the Assam Accord 1985, which was signed to address the problem of illegal migrants from Bangladesh. It emphasizes that the CAA is intended to protect people fleeing religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. The same categories of people are protected from expulsion under Section 2 of the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950. As a result, the CAA and the Assam Accord do not conflict.

"It is submitted that the tribal areas of Assam and Tripura, which are the most vulnerable in terms of the scant indigenous population, are falling within the excluded areas of the CAA. It is submitted that the said portions of Assam and Tripura are classified at par with the entire states of Mizoram, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh, and almost the entire states of Nagaland & Meghalaya being equally placed. It is submitted that with regard to the avowed object of the exclusion of certain areas from the CAA in order to protect the ethnic/linguistic rights and to protect them from getting swamped by a large-scale influx of migrants, the inclusion of non-tribal areas of Assam and Tripura in the CAA is not discriminatory as the said areas are not as thinly populated as other excluded areas and would not face the same consequences in case of immigration of persons," the affidavit stated.

Centre also claimed that the CAA is a "narrowly tailored law" with a specific cut-off date of December 31, 2014. As a result, it only applies to a specific group of people. These migrants are already in India, and the Amendment Act makes no provision for the grant of citizenship to any migrants who arrived after December 31, 2014. As a result, the CAA does not encourage illegal migration into Assam.