The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a series of petitions on Tuesday, March 19, urging the Centre to halt the enforcement of the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024 until the court resolves petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, alongside justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, will preside over the bench.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), emphasized that once Indian citizenship is granted to migrant Hindus, it cannot be revoked, thus underscoring the need for an expedited hearing.
The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, introduced by the Centre and ratified by Parliament, aims to extend Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014.
Following the issuance of the rules under the CAA by the Centre, the Kerala-based political party IUML promptly petitioned the Supreme Court, urging a stay on the rules’ implementation. IUML’s plea emphasizes the necessity to safeguard the rights of Muslim community members affected by the law.
Apart from IUML, various other parties and individuals, including the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), Assam’s leader of Opposition Debabrata Saika, and Congress MP Abdul Khaleque, have also filed applications.
IUML, one of the initial challengers of the CAA, deems the law to establish a discriminatory process for granting citizenship, solely based on religious identity, which they argue is manifestly arbitrary.
However, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, raised concerns regarding the petitioners’ standing, highlighting the substantial number of pending petitions against the CAA.
“We will hear this on Tuesday. There are 190 plus cases. All of them will be heard. We will place a full batch with the IAs (Interim applications),” remarked Chief Justice of India (CJI) regarding the upcoming hearing.
In a separate development, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has also approached the Supreme Court against the CAA. Owaisi’s petition seeks directives to the Centre to refrain from processing citizenship status applications under Section 6B of the Citizenship Act, 1955 (as amended by the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019) during the ongoing legal proceedings. Advocate Nizam Pasha, representing Owaisi, noted the filing of an application in 2019 when the act was initially passed in Parliament.
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