GUWAHATI: The panel set up by the ministry of home affairs ( MHA ) to recommend ways to implement Clause-6 of the Assam Accord to provide constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to the indigenous Assamese people submitted its report to chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal here on Tuesday.Sonowal is expected to send the report to Union home minister Amit Shah soon but the recommendations, which are a result of the Assam Accord of 1985, will not be binding on the Centre without screening and ratification by the Assam Assembly.For 34 years, Clause-6 of the Accord for protection of the identity of Assamese people has not been touched by any government in the absence of an official definition for ‘Assamese people’.“MHA will examine and see if the recommendations are within the ambit of the Constitution or if there are any recommendations going against any judgment of the Supreme Court, which cannot be implemented. MHA also has to send back the recommended definition of the ‘Assamese people’ to the Assembly. The Assembly will then discuss the definition and give its approval before it can be implemented,” minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.Three leaders of All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu), who are members of the panel, did not attend the handing over function to register their protest against the report being submitted to the chief minister and not the Union home minister.“The Union home minister had shown so much of interest when he announced the setting up of the panel, but now he has no time for the panel to accept its report,” Aasu chief advisor Samaujjal Bhattacharyya said.Justice (retd) B K Sharma , who led the high-level committee, said: “The report was prepared in time, but as it has not been made public and is yet to be handed over to the Union home minister, it will not be prudent on my part to divulge anything.”He said the panel deliberated on the various clauses of the Assam Accord, visited places in Assam, and received more than 1,200 representations and talked to various stakeholders for preparing the report.Sharma said, “There were two things — to suggest ways for safeguards to Assamese people and give a definition of Assamese people, who will get the safeguards.”He added, “We have also given a cut-off date for identifying an Assamese. Various suggestions were received… some wanted that it should be 1826, the year of the Treaty of Yandabo — when Burma agreed to cede to the British-Assam, Manipur, Rakhine (Arakan) and the Taninthayi (Tenasserim) coast south of the Salween River . Some others wanted it to be 1950 when India became a republic and some suggested 1971 (the cut-off date for determining an illegal migrant as per the Assam Accord). We examined all suggestions and arrived at a date we thought was right.”