Clause 6 of Assam Accord not Implementable: BJSM

Clause 6 of Assam Accord not Implementable: BJSM

Our Correspondent

Kokrajhar: Members of Bodoland Janajati Suraksha Mancha (BJSM), led by its president Janaklal Basumatary, met the High Power committee for implementation of clause 6 of Assam accord under Chairmanship of Rtd. Justice B.K.Sarma at Kokrajhar Circuit Jouse on Thursday.

BJSM expressed their views that the clause 6 is not implementable. “First of all the Assam Accord itself is not constitutionally valid as it is not ratified by parliament. For detection of foreigners the NRC update from 1971 is also unconstitutional. By agreeing to the Accord no foreigner can be granted citizenship. NRC update from 1971 means the foreigners from 1951 to 1971 are granted citizenship by registration which was closed as soon as the constitution was adopted in 1950 under Art.5 of the Constitution. Therefore, the Citizenship Amendment Act., allowing the foreigners citizenship on the basis of Assam Accord is unconstitutional, because it allowed citizenship to foreigners by registration from 1951 to 1971 arising out of NRC update from 1971 instead of 1951”, he said, adding that by accepting foreigner citizenship from 1951 to 1971, it is absurd to ask protection from them being of same status; they now posses the right to equality with you. There is no provision in the Constitution to grant reservation to the undefined community. He also said that in Clause 6, originally they had asked for constitutional safeguard of Assamese people. Since they could not define the word Assamese which includes all the migrant people also, so now they ask for constitutional safeguard for Assamese indigenous and other indigenous. This is also undefined. So there is no provision in the constitution to grant constitutional safeguard reservations to them as granted for land and political reservation granted to Schedule tribes in Assam by making exception of fundamental right of equality before law and equal opportunity under Art.15(4) & 16(4) of the constitution being weaker section of the society under Art.46 of the constitution, he said.

Basumatary said that the people who were not in category of weaker section of the community are not entitled any special constitutional safeguard reservation. So to implement the Clause 6, one has to define what is Assamese indigenous and what is other indigienous constitutionally. For defining the indigienous people constitutionally, they have to follow the definition of indigenous given by UN charter resolution in 2007, he said adding that as per this definition none of the Assamese indigenous or other indigenous qualify for indigenous in Assam except the notified schedule tribes of Assam. According to the UN definition, the invaders, the migrants in colonial period, the foreign migrants and interstate migrants in constitutional rule period and the advanced majority class people are not indigenous of a State. Thus if it is defined in accordance with the UN resolution, none of the Assamese and other indigenous are indigenous in Assam. So implementation of Clause 6 of Assam Accord is not possible which seeks constitutional safeguard reservation of land and political rights like schedule tribes, he added.

“There is no justification to grant them special protection for land, political reservation, and reservation for linguistic, cultural, customs and traditions being majority advanced group of the society simply due to fear of migrants whom they have illegally accepted as citizens of India. If they force to implement it by extra constitutional means, they have to keep intact the tribal constitutional safeguard reservations of land, political rights, language, culture, customs and traditions etc. No reservation of land, political rights be allowed in the tribal reserved area, in 6 schedule areas, in other tribal council areas, tribal belts and block areas. All the unserved constituencies in 6 schedule areas like Gossaigaon, Bijni, Tamulpur, Hojai etc., should be reserved for the tribal indigenous. Each council area should get one assembly constituency reserved for them”, he said and added, “Other predominant tribal areas like Gohpur, Mangaldoi, Marioni, Sarupather, Dispur, Barpather, Boko, Krishnai etc should be reserved for indigenous tribal people of Assam as per special provisions of the delimitation Act,” Basumatary said.

The tribal leader said that the argument of Samujjal Bhattacharjee that since the citizenship amendment is passed by the Parliament on the basis of Assam Accord by allowing people migrating before 1971 the Assam Accord is accepted by the Parliament, hence its legal aspect is hollow. This is allowing enactment of the Citizenship Act.; and there is no justification of fear of such citizen whom they have accepted as having equal status with them, he said. Therefore, there is no necessity to implement the Clause 6 of Assam Accord. All the problem will be solved if the foreigners are detected from 1951 through the NRC update from 1951. There will be no scope for fear of any migrants, he added.

Basumatary said that simply because the Supreme Court monitored the conduct of NRC update, it does not mean that it has legalized the NRC update from 1971. The court has monitored only for proper conduct of NRC in due time. Court has no power to conduct NRC, it is the jurisdiction of Executive to implement the Foreigner Act., Passport Act., for regulating the foreign migrants with constitutional duty to safeguard the sovereignty of the nation.

“Monitored by the court will not render the legality of the Assam Accord and acceptance of NRC update from 1971. Therefore, implementation of Clause 6 of Assam Accord is not possible”, he said, adding that there should be nominated MLAs from unrepresented smaller groups of indigenous tribals. All the persons left out in recent NRC list must be included without any further verification of documents.

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