CAA: Supreme Court to hear over 230 pleas seeking stay on Citizenship Amendment Rules today
CAA row: The Supreme Court took note of the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Indian Union Muslim League.
The Supreme Court will on Tuesday, March 19, hear a batch of petitions seeking a direction to the Centre to stay the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024 till the apex court has decided the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), that once Indian citizenship has been granted to migrant Hindus, it cannot be taken back, and so an early hearing was warranted.
The CAA rules, introduced by the Centre and passed by the Parliament in 2019, aim to confer Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants, including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians who migrated from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and arrived in India before December 31, 2014.
A day after the Centre issued the rules under the CAA, the Kerala-based political party Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) moved the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the implementation of the rules. The IUML demanded that the impugned statute and regulations be stayed and that no coercive steps be taken against persons belonging to the Muslim community who have been deprived of the benefit of this law, news agency ANI reported.
In addition to the IUML, other parties and individuals such as the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), leader of Opposition in the Assam assembly Debabrata Saika, Congress MP from Assam, Abdul Khaleque, and others have also submitted applications.
The IUML, which was among the initial parties to challenge the CAA before the Supreme Court in 2019, submitted the application stating that the law establishes a "highly truncated and fast-tracked process" for granting citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from specific countries. This, according to them, implements a "manifestly arbitrary and discriminatory" regime based solely on religious identity.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, raised doubts about the standing of the petitioners, as reported by news agency PTI.
Tushar Mehta stated, "No petitioner has any locus to question the grant of citizenship." He noted that there were 237 pending petitions against the CAA, with four interim applications seeking a stay on the implementation of the rules.
"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)," the Chief Justice of India (CJI) remarked.
Meanwhile, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi also approached the Supreme Court against the CAA. Owaisi's petition seeks directions to the Centre not to entertain or process applications seeking a grant of citizenship status under Section 6B of the Citizenship Act, 1955 (as amended by the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019) during the pendency of the proceedings. Advocate Nizam Pasha, representing Owaisi, stated that they had filed an application in 2019 when the act was passed in Parliament.
(With inputs from agencies)