Noting that the government should be given leeway if a ‘compromise’ is necessary to save the nation, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said the Assam Accord of 1985 and the new citizenship regime which followed in its wake might have been an “adjustment” reached by the Rajiv Gandhi government to calm the waves of violent anti-immigrant protests that rolled over the northeastern State for years and threatened national peace.
Supreme Court hearing on the challenge to Section 6A of the Citizenship Act | Day 2 updates
“You must give the government that latitude. Even today, there are States in the northeast affected by insurgency and violence… We have to give the government that leeway to make some sort of adjustment necessary to save maybe even the nation,” Chief Justice Chandrachud, heading a Constitution Bench, observed.
