Supreme Court agrees to hear petitions against CAA on Tuesday

Tribune News Service

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, March 15

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up more than 230 petitions against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, and the recently notified CAA Rules on March 19.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said the petitions against the CAA would be heard along with interlocutory applications on Tuesday after senior counsel Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter on behalf of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) -- one of the petitioners against the CAA.

He said when the CAA was passed in 2019, there was no question of stay as the Rules had not been notified.

"But now just before election, the Rules have been notified. Please list it. If citizenship is granted now, then it cannot be reversed," Sibal submitted.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, however, said the fact that the rules were notified before elections was irrelevant. "The petitioners will have no locus to say anything on citizenship," Mehta submitted.

Even as the Government on March 11 notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024, to enable the persons eligible under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, to apply for the grant of Indian citizenship, 237 petitions challenging the amendment have remained pending before the top court since December 2019.

Passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, the CAA was notified on January 10. It relaxes norms for grant of Indian citizenship by naturalisation to Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain and Parsi victims of religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who came to India before December 31, 2014.

Around 20 people were killed in Uttar Pradesh and dozens of others injured in the state and elsewhere, including in Delhi, in violent protests against the CAA.

The top court had on January 22, 2020 refused to stay the operation of the CAA and the National Population Register (NPR) and said that ultimately a five-judge Bench might have to decide these issues. Acting on a transfer petition by the Central government, it had restrained all high courts from passing any orders on the CAA.

The petitioners included Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress leader and former Union minister Jairam Ramesh, AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, NGOs Rihai Manch and Citizens Against Hate, Assam Advocates’ Association and several law students. In 2020, the Kerala government also filed a suit against the CAA.

Asserting that the CAA did not impinge upon any existing rights of citizens, the Centre had in March 2020 defended the law, saying there was no question of it violating constitutional morality.

In an affidavit filed in response to the petitions challenging the validity of the CAA, the Centre said it won’t affect the legal, democratic or secular rights of citizens and requested the court to dismiss petitions challenging it.

"CAA does not impinge upon any existing right that may have existed prior to the enactment of the amendment and further, in no manner whatsoever, seeks to affect the legal, democratic or secular rights of any of the Indian citizens. The existing regime for obtaining citizenship of India by foreigners of any country is untouched by the CAA and remains the same," it said.

Indian secularism was "not irreligious" and it takes cognisance of all religions and promotes comity and brotherhood, the affidavit said.

The petitioners contended that grant of citizenship based on religion was against the basic structure of the Constitution.

But in its affidavit, the Centre had asserted that Parliament was competent to earmark the religious minorities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan for relaxation in the grant of citizenship by naturalisation.

There was no question of it violating constitutional morality, it had said, adding the CAA didn’t confer any arbitrary and unguided powers on the executive as the citizenship to the persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh would be granted in a manner specified under the law governing grant of citizenship.

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