Supreme Court to hear batch of PILs against CAA
New Delhi, September 12: The Supreme Court will hear a batch of petitions challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, on Monday.
The pleas will be heard by the bench of Chief Justice of India UU Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat. The Supreme Court heard the first petitions against the CAA on December 18, 2019. The last time it was heard was on June 15, 2021.
CAA was passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, sparking protests across the country. The CAA came into effect on January 10, 2020.
Several political parties, including the Kerala-based Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress leader and former Union minister Jairam Ramesh, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi, Congress leader Debabrata Saikia, NGOs Rihai Manch and Citizens Against Hate, Assam Advocates Association, and law students are among those who had filed the petitions before the apex court challenging the Act.
The Kerala government became the first state to challenge the CAA, filing a suit in the Supreme court in 2020.
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The law expedites the process of granting citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians who fled religious persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan and sought refuge in India by December 31, 2014.
The Supreme Court had already sent notice to the Centre and refused to impose an interim order halting the statute without first hearing the Centre.
The Centre filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court in March 2020, claiming that the CAA Act is a "benign piece of legislation" that has no impact on the "legal, democratic, or secular rights" of any Indian citizen.
The petitioners said that the Act, which liberalises and expedites the grant of citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, encourages religion-based discrimination.
The amendments have also been challenged on several other grounds, including a violation of secularism, Articles 21 (right to life), 15 (prohibition of discrimination based on religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth), and 19 (right to freedom), as well as citizenship and constitutional morality provisions.
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-PTC News
