| IMDT Act-- A backgrounder | |
Guwahati, July 12: The controversial Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunal (IMDT) Act, scrapped by the Supreme Court today, was applicable only in the state of Assam for the detection and deportation of illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh. The act came into existence in 1983 at the height of the anti-foreigners agitation launched by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) for purpose of detection of foreigners and deletion of their names from electoral rolls. The Assam Accord - signed on August 14, 1985 by AASU, the Centre and the state government - had the provision that all foreigners who came to Assam after March 25, 1971 would be detected, deleted and deported through the mechanism of the IMDT Act, 1983. A salient feature of the act was that tribunals would be set up in different districts of the state having borders with Bangladesh to decide on the cases of complaint against illegal infiltrators. Another feature, which many found objectionable and led to the demand for its scrapping, was that the onus of proving the citizenship of a person lay on the complainant and not on the accused infiltrator compared to the foreigners' act in which the onus is on the accused had to prove that he is not a foreigner, a prominent Gauhati High Court lawyer said. As of now there are 2.5 lakh cases pending with the 16 IMDT tribunals, which stand scrapped following the Supreme Court ruling. These will now be decided under foreigners' act. The act failed in its objectives mainly due to the "flawed" clause on proving a citizen's identity, a BJP spokesman said claiming that in the two decades of its existence, not more than 2,000 people have been deported. The failure of the act to check the influx from Bangladesh led AASU to demand its scrapping but the AGP, which came to power after signing of the Assam accord could do nothing during its two terms in office. The NDA government at the centre during its rule also took the initiative to scrap the law but failed due to lack of adequate majority in both Houses of Parliament. The Congress has all along opposed scrapping of the act and opposition parties have accused it of indulging in vote-bank politics. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh during his last visit to the state had ruled out scrapping of the act. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had said that the act would stay but tribunals would be made more effective to deal with the influx problem and national register of citizens in Assam would be updated to tackle the problem effectively. Bureau Report | |
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