The Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon refused to stay the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The court also gave the government three weeks – till April 8 – to respond to 237 petitions challenging the law notified last week, days before the Lok Sabha elections.
Further, if citizenship is granted to any individual before this date, the petitioner will be allowed to approach; senior counsel Kapil Sibal and Indira Jaising, both of whom filed the plea, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta (appearing for the government) said, “I will not Make any statement.”
Mr Mehta initially asked for four weeks to respond to the petition.
“We have to submit a detailed affidavit to 237 petitions on merits. 20 interim applications have been filed and many are in the pipeline. Practically speaking, we need four weeks,” he told the court.
The case was heard by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra. The petitioners include the Indian Muslim League, a party based in Kerala, as well as opposition leaders Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and Mahua Moitra of the Trinamool Party (Mahua Moitra).
Read | Is the citizenship law unconstitutional? 237 Petition to the Supreme Court
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for April 9.
The petitioners – who did not oppose their demand for more time – sought a stay on the implementation of the “discriminatory” CAA, which they said was targeted against the Muslim community.
The petitioners told the court they would not oppose the government’s request for more time to study the challenges but urged a bench led by the Chief Justice to order a stay.
After the Citizenship Bill was passed by Parliament in 2019, several challenges were raised.
However, the court did not stay the execution as the rules were yet to be notified. Last week, while arguing the matter, Mr Sibal said the situation did not apply now as the rules had already been notified.
Read | India calls the US Civil Aviation Administration’s remarks “wrong, misleading and baseless”
“The problem is… the notification was given after four years. According to the law, the rules have to be notified within six months. Now the problem is – if someone gets citizenship, it is not possible to reverse it,” he said when asked . The court needs more time to respond to the government’s request.
“They said (in 2019) that they had not notified the rules and therefore no stay was granted. There was no question of ‘denial of stay’ (in the previous instance)…then there were no rules and so there was no stay,” he told the court, elaborating He argued for a stay of execution until the citizenship law challenges were resolved.
“Why did they wait four years?” he asked, referring to accusations by the Congress and other opposition parties that the implementation was delayed to coincide with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“Give them as much time as possible, but don’t grant citizenship at the same time,” argued Indira Jaising.
Mehta later said the fact that the rules were notified before the elections was irrelevant.
Read | Government clarifies citizenship law amid opposition attacks
Under the CAA, non-Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan fleeing religious persecution can seek citizenship. People from the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Zoroastrian or Christian communities from these three countries are eligible if they entered the country on or before December 31, 2014.
The opposition has slammed the timing of the law – four years after it was passed by parliament and just days before a general election. Ramesh said the move was “clearly aimed at polarizing the elections, especially in West Bengal and Assam”.
Trinamool boss and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she doubted the legality of the law and claimed it was a conspiracy to “deny civil rights”. “BJP leaders say CAA gives you rights. But the moment you apply for citizenship, you become an illegal immigrant and you will lose your rights. You will lose your rights and be taken to detention camps. Please think twice before applying ,”she says.
The government refuted the accusations.
Read | ‘Not anti-Muslim’: Amit Shah on opposition attack on CAA
Home Minister Amit Shah stressed that the CAA was not “unconstitutional” and accused the opposition of resorting to “politics of lies”. On the issue of timing, he said, “The BJP made it clear in its 2019 manifesto that it will introduce CAA and provide Indian citizenship to refugees (from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan). The BJP has a clear agenda and under this As soon as it was promised, the Indian Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was passed in both houses of Parliament in 2019. The bill was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
He also said minorities “have nothing to fear because there is no provision in the CAA to take back their rights”.
NDTV is now available on WhatsApp channel. click the link Get all the latest updates from NDTV in your chat.
wait reply load…
Follow us on Google news ,Twitter , and Join Whatsapp Group of thelocalreport.in
