NEW DELHI, Dec 13: The All India Chakma Social Forum (AICSF) has said that the Chakmas will challenge the constitutional validity of the amended Citizenship Act, 2019, “including exemptions given to ILP states.”

“The exemptions given are unconstitutional as the Supreme Court of India in the case of the National Human Rights Commission vs State of Arunachal Pradesh & Anr on the Chakmas of Arunachal Pradesh held that Inner Line Regulation does not apply for submitting citizenship applications,” it said in a statement.

“The review petition in the case was dismissed by the court and the judgment has become the law of the land,” said AICSF advisor Suhas Chakma.

He said “the entire exemption under Section 3 of the Citizenship Act of 2019 is unconstitutional because it is manifestly arbitrary, capricious, irrational or without adequate determining principle as enunciated by the Supreme Court of India in the case of Hindustan Construction Company Limited & Anr vs Union of India on 27 November 2019.”

There is no provision in the constitution to exempt certain states from the Citizenship Act and India’s laws did not apply only to erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir as it had separate constitutional provision under Article 35 (A) and Article 370 of the constitution, which were repealed on 5 August, 2019, the press release read.

The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873 deals exclusively with protection of the natives of the areas defined with respect to “any rubber, wax, ivory or other jungle product (or any book, diary, manuscript, map, picture, photograph, film, curio or article of religious or scientific interest)” as per Section 5 of the regulation and “acquiring any interest in land or the product of land beyond the said “inner line” area as per Clause 7, and therefore the same cannot be extended to citizenship, the statement said.

The AICSF also questioned as to why, if exemption has been given to 6th schedule areas, the same cannot be extended to the 5th schedule areas.

“In fact, if despite entire Manipur not being tribal areas can be declared as inner line area, Assam and Tripura too can be fully covered,” it said.