Over 200 petitions challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 constitutional validity will be heard by a two-judge bench headed by CJI UU Lalit and also comprising Justice Ravindra Bhatt
Supreme Court of India. PTI
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear over 200 petitions challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 on Monday, 12 September. The pleas will be heard by the bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit and comprising Justice S Ravindra Bhatt.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, was notified on 12 December, 2019, and it came into force on January 10, 2020. It aims to give citizenship to migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan,
CAA evoked widespread protests across the country as it was perceived as an attempt to deprive Muslims of Indian citizenship.
For the unversed, in January 2020, the apex court had issued notice over the batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the CAA.
In December 2019, the top court bench comprising the then CJI Sharad A. Bobde and Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant had asked the Centre to file a response by the second week of January. The court had said the CAA, 2019, is “uppermost in everybody’s minds”, but refused to stay the law without hearing the government first.
The petitions before the Supreme Court stated that the Act which liberalises and fast-tracks the grant of citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan “promotes religion-based discrimination”.
After this, the apex court in January 2020 granted four weeks time to the Central government to respond to the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the CAA.
“CAA is a specific amendment which seeks to tackle a specific problem prevalent in the specified countries i.e. persecution on the ground of religion in light of the undisputable theocratic constitutional position in the specified countries..:, the government’s affidavit said.
It further clarified that the 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.
With inputs from agencies.
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