Shillong, Dec 16: The North East Students’ Organization (NESO) on Monday filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking the quashing of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

The CAA seeks to provide citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

In the petition, the NESO through its chairman Samuel Jyrwa has termed the CAA as unconstitutional and in violation of several provisions of the Constitution of India and urged the Court to issue direction declaring the Act as discriminatory, arbitrary and illegal.

It has said that the Centre should be directed to take effective steps for implementation of the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

The NESO which has been spearheading the protest against the CAA, also sought conservation and preservation of the distinct culture, heritage and traditions of the indigenous people of North East region.

Bangladesh and India share a 4,096-kilometer international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world.

The petition said that large scale illegal migration from Bangladesh over several decades has been altering the demographic complexion of the North-East India. This poses a grave threat both to the identity of the North-Eastern people and to national security.

It also quoted the statement submitted by the then Minister of State for Home Affairs on July 14, 2004 which had indicated that the estimated number of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in India as on December 31, 2001 was 1,20,53,950.

Out of the total figure of 1.20 crores, 50 lakh illegal Bangladeshi immigrants were in Assam, 30 thousand in Meghalaya, 800 in Arunachal Pradesh, 59,500 in Nagaland and 3,25,400 in Tripura, the petition added.

In 1983, Parliament enacted The Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, 1983 and made the same applicable only to Assam.

It said that although it was stated to be a measure which would expedite the determination of illegal migrants in the State of Assam with a view to their deportation, the said Act in fact provided a far more onerous and cumbersome process for the detection of illegal migrants in the State of Assam, than the procedure prescribed by the Foreigners Act, 1946 applicable in the rest of India.

Consequently, a three judge bench of this Court struck down the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983 and the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Rules, 1984 as ultra vires in its judgment reported as Sarbananda Sonowal v. Union of India, (2005) 5 SCC 665 (hereinafter “Sonowal (I)”).

“It was inter alia held by this Court (at para 63) that illegal migration into the State of Assam constituted “external aggression” within the meaning of Article 355 of the Constitution of India,” the petition states.