CONCEPT – ILLEGAL MIGRANTS (DETERMINATION BY TRIBUNAL) ACT, [IMDT ACT]

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 CONCEPT – ILLEGAL MIGRANTS (DETERMINATION BY TRIBUNAL) ACT, [IMDT ACT]

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• The Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal ) (IMDT) Act was an Act of the Parliament of India enacted in 1983 by the Indira Gandhi government. It was struck down by the Supreme Court of India in 2005 in Sarbananda Sonowal v. Union of India.
• Known as the IMDT Act (1983) it described the procedures to detect illegal immigrants (from Bangladesh) and expel them from Assam. The Act was pushed through mainly on the grounds that it provided special protections against undue harassment to the “minorities” affected by the Assam Agitation. It was applicable to the state of Assam only whereas in other states, detection of foreigners is done under The Foreigners Act, 1946.
• The act made it difficult to deport illegal immigrants from Assam. It has been alleged to be one of the main reasons for the rapid rise of the Muslim population and demographic change in Assam.
• SALIENT FEATURES

1. The Foreigners Act, 1946 defines a foreigner as a person who is not a citizen of India. Section 9 of the Act states that, where the nationality of a person is not evident as per preceding section 8, the onus of proving whether a person is a foreigner or not, shall lie upon such person.
2. However, under the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal ) (IMDT) Act, the burden of proving the citizenship or otherwise rested on the accuser and the police, not the accused. This was a major departure from the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946.
3. The accuser must reside within a 3 km radius of the accused, fill out a complaint form (a maximum of ten per accuser is allowed) and pay a fee of ten Rupees.
4. If a suspected illegal migrant is thus successfully accused, he is required by the Act to simply produce a ration card to prove his Indian citizenship.
5. If a case made it past these requirements, a system of tribunals made up of retired judges would finally decide on deportation based on the facts.
6. The act also provided that 'if the application is found frivolous or vexatious' the Central Government may not accept it.
7. It excluded the migrants who entered India before March 25, 1971 from the illegal-migration accusation. And for post-1971 migrants too, the procedure for deporting were tough.

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