Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a batch of pleas seeking to examine the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).A bench, comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna, which had issued notice to the Centre on various pleas, is likely to hear over 140 petitions, including those filed by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh.
Some of the petitions filed later have also sought a stay on the operation of the legislation which came into force on January 10.
On January 9, the Supreme Court had refused to entertain a plea seeking that the CAA be declared constitutional, saying the country is going through difficult times and there is so much violence that endeavour should be for peace.
IUML said in its plea that CAA violates the fundamental Right to Equality and intends to grant citizenship to a section of illegal immigrants by making an exclusion on the basis of religion.
President Ram Nath Kovind gave assent to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 on December 12, turning it into an Act.
IUML seeks an interim stay on the operation of CAA and the Foreigner Amendment (Order), 2015 and Passport (Entry Into Rules), Amendment Rules, 2015.
The petition had alleged that the government’s CAA was against the basic structure of the Constitution and intended to explicitly discriminate against Muslims as the Act extended benefits only to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians.
The plea filed by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, said the Act is a “brazen attack” on core fundamental rights envisaged under the Constitution and treats “equals as unequal”.
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