NHRC asks Centre, GoAP to examine compliance of apex court order on Chakma-Hajongs citizenship

NEW DELHI, May 20: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has directed the Centre and the Government of Arunachal Pradesh to examine the compliance of order passed by the Supreme Court in 2015 to confer citizenship to the Chakmas and Hajongs within three months, and do the needful in case any part of the order of the apex court still remains "uncomplied'' and inform the Commission within two months, Suhas Chakma, founder of Chakma Development Foundation of India (CDFI) claimed on Friday.

He informed that the direction from the NHRC came after the CDFI and the Chakma and Hajong Elders’ Forum of Arunachal Pradesh (CHEF) filed a joint complaint with the Commission on March 22 stating that the 1996 and 2015 judgments of the Apex Court were not complied with as on date and not a single citizenship application out of the 4,637 applications submitted during 1997-2003 has been determined.

“Hearings were held only in 3,827 applications out of which only 1,798 were forwarded by the State government of Arunachal Pradesh to the Ministry of Home Affairs but no decision has been taken in the last 26 years. Rule 12 of the Citizenship Rules, 2009 requires the Deputy Commissioner/State government to forward the citizenship applications within 120 days at the maximum,” Chakma said.

The SC in its order on September 17, 2015 had directed the Government of India and Arunachal Pradesh government to finalise the conferment of citizenship rights on eligible Chakmas and Hajongs, the CDFI founder stated.

“The registration of complaint by the NHRC as the original petitioner before the SC for protection of the rights of the Chakmas and Hajongs in 1995 was a historic one. The non-implementation of the apex court's judgments shall go down in the annals of history as the worst case of 'racial discrimination'. When the state and non-state actors take pride for non-implementation of the judgments, there are serious problems whether the country itself is being governed by the rule of law,” Chakma said.

Endorsing the CDFI founder, CHEF general secretary Pritimoy Chakma said, “All 1,798 applicants whose applications have been forwarded to the Central government had signed the oath of allegiance with incontrovertible documents such as Aadhaar card, ration cards, police verification report, father’s ID card, land possession certificate, land taxes paid etc. None of these applicants has any criminal cases against them and the police verification reports on their antecedents are clear. Descendants of most applicants such as son, daughters and children have been enrolled as voters based on the documents of the migrants but the original migrants’ applications have not been processed.”

On Friday, a delegation of the CHEF and CDFI led by Suhas Chakma had met NHRC officials and apprised various issues related to the Chakmas and Hajongs.

The Chakmas and Hajongs of Arunachal Pradesh are migrants from the Chittagong Hill Tracts of erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Displaced by the Kaptai dam on the Karnaphuli River in the 1960s, they were settled mostly in southern Arunachal Pradesh during 1964-1969.

Chief Minister Pema Khandu had, in his Independence Day address in 2021, stated that both the BJP Governments in the State and at the Centre will work “in a much focused way” and will relocate the illegal immigrants “with proper order” beyond Arunachal Pradesh.

“Arunachal being a tribal state, as per constitutional provisions, they (Chakmas-Hajongs) cannot settle down in our state….We will solve this vexed issue constitutionally, in coming days,” Khandu had said.

The Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union (AAPSU), which has been spearheading a mass movement against the Chakmas and Hajongs for decades, demanded the Chakma-Hajong settlers be shifted out of tribal-dominated Arunachal Pradesh. The AAPSU fears that the ‘refugees’ could outnumber the indigenous population and influence electoral outcomes. (UNI)