LI NETWORK
About 140 petitions challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act has been pending for a year in the top court.
The petitioners over the political spectrum and others are disappointed due to the delayed hearing of cases concerning the constitutionality of CAA.
Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh, one of the petitioners, also mentioned his disappointment.
The CAA case was last heard on March 3, 2020, when senior advocate Kapil Sibal, made an immediate oral mention for a stay on the implementation of law before the Chief Justice of India.
The Chief Justice referred the case to the constitutional bench and asked Kapil Sibal to request for interim order after Holi vacation.
The petitioner, for the third time, sought a stay in March when the court discontinued due to the pandemic by the end of the month.
The court said in January 2020, CAA was “uppermost in everybody’s minds.”
The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) had filed the first petition in the Supreme Court against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December last year.
Legislator and senior advocate P. Wilson, for DMK, said the delay of the CAA case makes a strong argument for the establishment of regional benches of the Supreme Court.
He suggested that the Supreme Court can hear constitutional matters, and the regional bench can hear other cases.
The petitions against CAA have argued that selective illegal migration to India based on religion was against secularism, equality, and dignity of life enshrined in the Indian Constitution.
But the Ministry of Home Affairs described CAA as a “benign” law that will not throw out illegal migrants.
The Ministry also argued that the CAA doesn’t hurt secularism.
It only relaxes the principles of Indian citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians who were ill-treated in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.