In a significant move with wide-ranging legal and political implications, the Assam Government has directed the Border Police, district authorities, and Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) to drop cases against individuals from six non-Muslim communities—Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis—who entered India on or before December 31, 2014. As per the report of Scroll, the directive, grounded in the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), marks the most assertive implementation yet of the law’s religiously selective framework and signals a fundamental shift in Assam’s approach to citizenship adjudication.
According to the report, the decision follows a meeting chaired by the Home and Political Department on July 17, 2025, under instructions from Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. According to the official minutes, Foreigners Tribunals have now been instructed that they are “not supposed to pursue cases of foreigners belonging to the six specified communities…who had entered into Assam on or prior to 31.12.2014.” District Commissioners and police heads have been asked to hold immediate meetings with tribunal members and submit periodic action-taken reports on the withdrawal of such cases. This executive diktat, that clearly discriminates against citizens based on faith (violation of Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Indian Constitution) and has still to be accessed in the public domain (through a notification etc)
This comes just over a year after the Union Government notified the long-pending rules of the CAA in March 2024, nearly five years after the Act was passed in Parliament amidst widespread protests. The law fast-tracks Indian citizenship for undocumented migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan belonging to six religious groups—excluding Muslims, Sri Lankans and Buddhists—on the condition that they entered India before the cut-off date of December 31, 2014.
The state’s internal notification also “encourages and supports” affected persons from these communities to apply for Indian citizenship under the CAA. Simultaneously, district authorities have been told to ensure compliance with earlier state instructions to withdraw cases against individuals from the Gorkha and Koch-Rajbongshi communities—both identified as politically significant electoral blocs.
Electoral calculations, policy contradictions
The timing of these directives is politically significant. Assam heads to the polls in 2026, and the withdrawal of cases against Bengali Hindus, Koch-Rajbongshis, and other non-Muslim groups may be read as a strategic move to consolidate the BJP’s support base. In April 2025, the CM had already promised to revoke 28,000 pending FT cases against Koch Rajbongshis—a move greeted with both celebration and skepticism. Detailed report may be read here.)
However, the credibility of these decisions remains under question. Despite the state’s commitment to drop all FT proceedings against Koch Rajbongshis, hearings continue against members of the community, such as Kishor Barman, whose case was heard at the Kajalgaon FT just days after the CM’s announcement.
These inconsistencies echo past episodes. For instance, despite an earlier 2021 promise to halt all new FT references against Gorkhas, members of the community have continued to face exclusion and legal scrutiny, including a former army jawan whose case reached the Gauhati High Court.
Moreover, while the government claims that indigeneity is a basis for withdrawing cases, especially in the case of Koch Rajbongshis. other indigenous communities like the Goria, Moria, Deshi, and Sayeed Muslims continue to be targeted by the FT system. The term “Khilonjia” (original inhabitants) remains undefined in Assam’s legal framework, raising troubling questions about the political selectivity of who gets protected and who remains vulnerable.
The CAA-NRC Convergence: A weaponised citizenship regime?
These developments lay bare the core fears that had animated the mass protests against the CAA in 2019–2020: that the law, in tandem with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), would create a two-tiered citizenship regime—offering protection and rehabilitation to non-Muslim undocumented migrants, while leaving Muslims, Sri Lankans and Buddhists vulnerable to statelessness and detention.
In August 2019, Assam released the final NRC list, excluding over 19 lakh people—around 5.7% of applicants. As per CM Sarma’s own admission in March 2024, this excluded group included five lakh Bengali Hindus, two lakh Assamese Hindus (from groups like Koch-Rajbongshi, Kalita, and Sarma), and 1.5 lakh Gorkhas.
Sabrangindia was the first to report on the demography of the exclusion. (Over 7 lakh Hindus among those excluded from the NRC, leaked data suggests)
The BJP’s public stance has been that Hindus left out of the NRC would be protected through the CAA—a promise that is now being visibly executed. But for Muslims similarly excluded from the NRC, no parallel legal shield exists. Instead, they continue to face FT proceedings, with the risk of indefinite detention, being illegally pushed back or statelessness.
A legally divisive, politically calculated shift
The state’s current instructions, coupled with CM Sarma’s selective commitments, reinforce what critics have long argued: that the CAA-NRC framework is less about identifying undocumented migrants and more about institutionalising religious discrimination in India’s citizenship law. Assam’s implementation model offers a blueprint of how this discrimination is playing out on the ground—one in which the fate of a person’s citizenship is decided not by facts or legal consistency, but by their religion, political expediency, and electoral arithmetic.
As Assam moves closer to the 2026 elections, the government’s latest moves seem less about course correction and more about shaping a religiously filtered citizenry—an outcome long feared by constitutional scholars, civil society groups, and affected communities alike.
Related:
Assam’s Foreigners’ Tribunals bypass constitutional safeguards: Report
Development by Displacement: Assam evicts thousands for Adani project without due process
The contested interpretation of the Immigrant Expulsion from Assam Act, 1950