In November last year, the Assam government invoked for the first time a long-dormant 1950 law to order five people from Sonitpur district — who had been declared foreigners by a Foreigners’ Tribunal — to leave India. It did the same in December, this time ordering the expulsion of 15 people from Nagaon district
These orders were borne out of the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, which was dormant since its enactment more than seven decades ago — till it was revived last year with the state Cabinet approving an SOP for its implementation.
These 15 people were learnt last month to have been moved from a transit camp to near the Bangladesh border. The family of at least one of these persons has approached the Supreme Court, while some others have moved the Gauhati High Court, challenging their respective Foreigners’ Tribunal orders.
But Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma reiterated last week that the government is looking to bypass such legal options by ordering their expulsion through the 1950 Act “within a week” of a Foreigners’ Tribunal order before an applicant can post a challenge.
This is the history of the Act and why the state government has revived its use.
What is the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act or IEAA?
The IEAA was a legislation drafted by the Centre — coming into effect on March 1, 1950 — following pressure from the Assam government at the time for measures to check migration from then East Pakistan in the years following Partition. Migration into the region was already a key political issue by then, as it is now, 75 years later.
The Union government drafted the law as citizenship was a Central subject, and delegated powers to the state to expel “undesirable” migrants — the legislation was originally even called the Undesirable Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act.
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In the uncertain socio-political aftermath of Partition, the Act sought to distinguish between migrants and refugees, stating that it shall not apply to any person displaced “on account of civil disturbances or the fear of such disturbances in any area now forming part of Pakistan”.
The Act added that if the Centre was of the opinion that the stay of any person in Assam — who was ordinarily resident of any place outside India and had come either before or after the commencement of the Act — “is detrimental to the interests of the general public of India or any section thereof or of any Scheduled Tribe in Assam”, it could direct such a person to “remove himself or themselves” from Assam or India “within such time and by such route as may be specified in the order.”
The IEAA said any officer of the Union government or the Assam government could exercise this power.
To what extent was this Act applied?
Its implementation turned out to be short-lived. In his book The Quest for Modern Assam, historian Arupjyoti Saikia wrote that at the same time as this Act was finalised, parts of Lower Assam saw rioting between Hindus and Muslims, with anywhere between 40,000 and 1 lakh Muslims from these areas fleeing to East Pakistan.
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The Act hence posed problems for many Bengali Muslims who originally were from Assam, Saikia wrote, adding: “… when an old resident was asked to leave his residence in an Upper Assam town within three days (of such an order being issued to the resident) Nehru was furious”.
This incidentally also coincided with the pact signed between Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Pakistani counterpart Liaquat Ali Khan to ensure the security and rights of minorities in the respective territories of Pakistan and India. On April 10, two days after the pact was signed, Nehru wrote to Assam Chief Minister Gopinath Bardoloi to stop all action under the IEAA, saying the Pakistani PM had also raised the Act in their talks.
“… it would be most unwise to take any action under that Act (the IEAA) now. Our main purpose is to concentrate on getting full control (over) the situation in East and West Bengal and Assam and to remove the sense of fear from the minorities. Everything else should be subordinated to this. If we cannot succeed in this, then all kinds of other problems will overwhelm us,” Nehru wrote to Bordoloi.
According to different accounts, the numbers of those affected by the IEAA remained a couple of hundred.
Why the government has revived it
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Legally, those declared foreigners by Foreigners’ Tribunals can appeal in the Gauhati High Court and Supreme Court. Additionally, the formal process of deportation entails a handover to the authorities of the other country after mutual verification that an individual is a national of the other country. This has meant that while thousands of people have been declared “foreigners” over the years, deportation through this process has lagged.
Since May 2025, the Assam government has taken recourse to “pushing” declared foreigners “back”, or forcing them across the international border without any discussions with the other country. In September, the government claimed legal sanction for this process by reviving the 1950 Act, claiming the Supreme Court had directed it to employ the same.
Subsequently, it framed an SOP, and has invoked the Act on multiple occasions — directing declared foreigners to leave the country within 24 hours.
Last week, Sarma said that with this process, the state government has bypassed the need for a treaty between India and Bangladesh on the issue. “We can now expel from 10,000 to 50,000 foreigners, if we can identify them. In the last five years if evictions (from government land) were a hallmark of the government, in the next five years, the hallmark will be the number of expelled foreigners,” he said.
