Statelessness, Detention Centres, and the Otherisation and the current Chief Minister of Assam, Mr Sarbananda Sonowal. 16 The petition challenged the IMDT Act and the associated rules on the grounds of arbitrariness and discrimination against the Assamese people. Consequently, the Court unanimously repealed the IMDT Act and its rules as it was in violation of arts 14 (‘Right to Equality’) and 355 (‘Duty of Union to Protect against External Aggression’) of the Constitution of India. 17 Although the decision of the Court was based on procedural grounds, it presented the problem of illegal immigration in the language of ‘aggression’ and ‘infiltration’ from which the citizens must be protected. 18 The IMDT Act was seen as a ‘pro-immigrant’ law, as it placed the burden on the state to establish the individual’s status as illegal. 19 However, the Court’s judgment brought all ‘suspected citizens’ under the ambit of the Foreigners Act, where the onus to prove an individual’s citizenship rested on themselves. 20 The Court’s legal imagining of cross-border migration as an invasion was based on a problematic report submitted by the then Lieutenant Governor of State of Assam (former Deputy Chief of the Army Staff). According to the report, the cross-border movement of people was supported by Bangladesh (and the militant organisations present therein) to convert Assam into a Muslim majority state which then would facilitate the cessation of the entire North-East region from India. 21 Accepting the same flawed reasoning, the judges built the narrative of the ‘Muslim invaders’ who pose a high-security risk to India’s national security through their potential to change the local demography. 22 THE JUDICIAL CULPABILITY Since 2014, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the responsibility undertaken by the Government of India under the Assam Accord to revise the 1951 Register of Citizens and has prescribed a time limit for the government to do this. 23 The NRC finds its origins in the 2003 amendment to the Citizenship Act 1955 which excluded the grant of citizenship based on birth, paved the way for the citizenship test of descent 24 and set in motion the mechanism for issuing national identity cards. 25 This court-monitored process triggered a humongous bureaucratic exercise to meet the deadline for the preparation of the NRC. The first draft of the revised list, which was submitted in 2018, provided the names of over four million people who had failed to prove their citizenship. The final list drawn up in August 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Sarbananda Sonowal v Union of India (2005) 5 SCC 665, [2], [58] (‘Sonowal’). ibid 46 [58]. Sonowal (n 16). Goswami (n 6). Foreigners Act (n 12) s 9. Sonowal (n 16) [36]–[38]. ibid [37]–[38]. Samanwaya Rautray, ‘Supreme Court Extends Assam NRC Publication Deadline to Aug 31’, The Economic Times (online, 23 July 2019) <https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/sc-extends-nrc-deadlineto-aug-31-rejects-pleas-for-20-pc-sample-re verification/articleshow/70346185.cms?from=mdr>. Anupama Roy, ‘The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and the Aporia of Citizenship’ (2019) 54(49) Economic and Political Weekly 28, 29. See Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules 2003 (India), ss 3(3), 13. 261