'What is govt doing to ensure an impermeable border,' SC asks Centre on illegal immigration

The bench also asked the Centre to inform it about the steps taken to deal with illegal immigration into India, particularly the North Eastern states.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday sought to know from the Centre extent of illegal immigration to Assam post-1971 and steps taken by it to ensure an impermeable border.

Hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act relating to illegal immigrants in Assam, a five-judge bench led by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud also sought a response from West Bengal on illegal immigration.

The court asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, for data on illegal immigration post 1971.

"Do we have that data," the bench asked the Centre.

“In case of Bangladesh, their language, their food habits, their dressing everything, they mingle every easily. Because of that maybe there is no uproar or something that does not justify government not taking steps. I must admit," Mehta said, adding that he was referring to Bengal.

The bench said the petitioners’ argument is what you did to Assam, the same was not done to West Bengal.

“But beyond that now, we are going beyond the validity argument. First we want to know, what was reason for the Parliament to exclude West Bengal for the grant of citizenship. We are not saying that they should have granted it. What led to believe that this problem is peculiar to Assam and not Bengal, why did we leave West Bengal alone,” the bench asked.

The bench sought to know the extent of illegal migration post 1971 and what the government was doing in West Bengal.

Mehta sought to file an affidavit in this regard.

"We would like an updated statement from government of India and let Home Secretary apply his mind to this: what is the government doing to safeguard the border, in terms of border fencing? How far is the border fencing," the bench asked Mehta.

The bench asked Mehta, "Why did you single out Assam when West Bengal shares a relatively larger border with Bangladesh and why weren't migrants from Bangladesh given citizenship in West Bengal? Why allow this only for Assam? Do we have any data to indicate that illegal migration in Bengal was minimal, therefore it was left?"

The bench, also comprising justices Surya Kant, M M Sundresh, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, asked, "If we affirm Section 6A, what have we done post 1971?"

The bench asked Mehta, "How do you propose to deal with illegal immigration at least after 1971?"

The bench also said that India is not some authoritarian country and would have to go by the rule of law—if the law is not followed, then genuine people may be thrown out.

The bench also asked Mehta, “What is the government doing to ensure that you have an impermeable border, what is the investment to make sure border becomes impermeable, what are the executive steps government taking? To what extent border has been fenced? We want to know; this is a crucial problem independent of Section 6A."

The court is seized of 17 petitions to examine the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act relating to illegal immigrants in Assam. Section 6A in the Citizenship Act was inserted as a special provision to deal with the citizenship of people covered by the Assam Accord.