Govt gets four weeks to reply; 5-judge Bench to hear matter
The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to the Centre on pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act saying it will not issue any order to stay the Act without hearing the Government’s argument. The court gave the Government four weeks to respond. A five-judge Constitution Bench will hear the matter.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde restrained all high courts from hearing pleas on the CAA till it decides in the matter. As many as 143 petitioners have approached the SC on CAA questioning its constitutional validity.
The Bench, also comprising Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna, said it will hear the petitions related to Assam and Tripura separately as the problem with the CAA in these two States is different from rest of the country.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for some petitioners, said the issue be referred to a Constitution Bench and the NPR exercise be postponed by a couple of months. He also urged the Bench to put on hold the operationalisation of the CAA.
Asserting that it will not pass any ex-parte order without hearing the Centre on staying the operation of the CAA and exercise of the National Population Register (NPR), the court said it will pass order on granting any interim relief to petitioner opposing the CAA after four weeks.
The petitions concerning Tripura and Assam as well as the matters related to Uttar Pradesh, which is going ahead with the implementation of the CAA without framing any rules, can be dealt with separately, the Bench said. It said the earlier cutoff date for citizenship in Assam was March 24, 1971 and noted that it has been extended till December 31, 2014 under the CAA.
The SC said it will decide in-chamber the modalities of hearing the batch of petitions on the CAA and may fix them for day-to-day hearing after four weeks.
Attorney General KK Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, told the Bench the Government has been given copies of around 60 pleas out of the 143 petitions. He said it wanted time to respond to all the pleas.
Several petitions have been filed challenging the constitutional validity of the CAA. Among those who have filed pleas are the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, RJD leader Manoj Jha, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi.
The IUML said in its plea that the 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.
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 Ramesh said the Act is a “brazen attack” on core fundamental rights envisaged under the Constitution and treats “equals as unequal”.
The other petitioners include the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, the All Assam Students Union (AASU), the Peace Party, the CPI, NGOs Rihai Manch and Citizens Against Hate, advocate M L Sharma, and law students.
