Aastha Thakur
Published on: 8th September 2022 at 20:17 IST
On September 12, the Supreme Court will hear several petitions contesting the constitutionality of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act 2019.
After the Supreme Court filed a notice in the case in December 2019, the Chief Justice of India, UU Lalit, led a bench that is scheduled to hear the case. The CAA becomes operative on January 10, 2020. A member of the bench will also be Justice S. Ravindra Bhat.
The 2019 Act is being contested in more than 200 petitions that are currently pending before the Supreme Court.
It pertinent to note that the Centre was ordered to submit a response by the second week of January by the bench, which was made up of CJI Bobde, Justices BR Gavai, and Surya Kant, in December 2019.
According to the Petitions, the Act, which liberalises and expedites the citizenship process for non-Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, encourages discrimination based on religion.
After that, the Central Government was given four weeks by the Supreme Court in January to answer to around 140 writ petitions contesting the contentious Act’s constitutionality.
Additionally, the Central Government filed a “preliminary counter affidavit” in the Supreme Court in response to the petitions filed challenging the constitutional validity of the Act.
In March 2020, the Central Government stated before the Supreme Court that the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 is a “benign piece of legislation” that does not affect the “legal, democratic or secular rights” of any of the Indian Citizens.
The response filed by Indian Union Muslim League give elaborate explanation to each of the grounds of constitutional violation in total 130-pages.
It was mentioned from the beginning that the CAA aims to offer certain areas a relief in the form of amnesty with a distinct deadline.
“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..,”, stated the affidavit.
“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”, says the affidavit sworn to by Mr B C Joshi, Director, Ministry of Home Affairs.