The Assam Cabinet approved a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for implementing the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, that empowers district commissioners to give “suspected foreigners” ten days to prove their Indian citizenship or face evacuation orders.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stated that this move would allow the government to bypass the existing procedures for citizenship determination.
Speaking to the media, he said, “If the district commissioner is informed that someone is a foreigner, whether by the border police or other sources, the official will issue a notice giving that person 10 days to prove their citizenship.”
If the documents submitted within that period do not satisfy the district commissioner, an “evacuation order” will be passed on the tenth day, he added.
“The person will then be taken to a holding centre, and from there, the BSF(border security force) will push them back to Bangladesh or Pakistan,” he said.
The state government has decided to bypass Foreigners Tribunals (FT), shifting the power into the hands of the district commissioners. Sarma clarified the roles, stating that only in a complex case, “If the district commissioner cannot prima facie determine that the person is a foreigner, the matter will be referred to the FT.”
In June, during an Assembly session, the chief minister had announced that the Assam government would begin enforcing the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 (IEAA).
He cited the 2024 Supreme Court ruling by a Constitution Bench, which upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act that marked March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for entry into Assam, classifying anyone who entered the state after that as an “illegal immigrant”.
The Influx from East Pakistan (Control) Act, 1950 (IEAA 1950) was originally enacted by the Union government in response to the Assam government’s demands for measures to curb migration from East Pakistan in the years following Partition.
However, in October 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A, but observed that the restrictions on illegal immigration after 1971 had not been effectively enforced.
The Act aided the central government to order the removal of any individual, if their status was deemed “detrimental to the interests of the general public of India, any section thereof, or any Scheduled Tribe in Assam.”
Such individuals could be ordered to leave Assam, or even India, within a specified timeframe and via a designated route.
On Tuesday, CM Biswa claimed that the state has “pushed back” over 30,000 illegal immigrants to date.
Critics have argued that the Assam government’s pushbacks in 2025 were carried out with communal bias, with opposition leaders alleging that the BJP-led administration is specifically targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims, who are frequently labelled as illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators.
Several Bengali-speaking Muslim families have been displaced as the government has intensified its demands for individuals to prove their citizenship.
Follow on Twitter | Posted by Veena Nair | 
