SC agrees to hear plea of Muslim and student organisations against CAA

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a fresh batch of petitions challenging constitutional validity of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) but refused to pass any interim order to stay its operation.
A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde, Justices A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy issued notice to Centre seeking its response on the petitions and tagged them with other petitions filed earlier against CAA. The court passed the order on petitions filed by Tamil Nadu Thoweed Jamat, All Assam Law Students Union, Muslim Students Federation(Assam) and others. More than 150 petitions have so far been filed in apex court on the issue.
Tamil Nadu Thoweed Jamat, who filed the petition through advocate Vikas Singh Jangra, alleged that the amendment is against the fundamental principle of ‘secularism’, which is enshrined as basic structure of the Constitution as it has introduced religion as a reference point for acquisition of citizenship for illegal migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
“The present Act has raised severe insecurity and apprehension in the mind of Muslim minority all over the country as the Act stands to be anti- Muslim community and anti- minority even on the face of it. The Act has made a clear exclusion of Muslim community in regards to the government policy of giving citizenship to the undocumented migrants and refugees. The Citizenship Act, 1955 is on a principle that the citizenship as a unifying idea. Its shared identity is at the core of citizenship and has been at the core since the time the constitution was enacted in India,”it said.
Muslim Students Federation in its plea alleged that Citizenship Amendment Act was in direct contradiction to the Assam Accord of 1985 and Section 6A of the Citizenship Act and pleaded the court to declare the amendment as unconstitutional and illegal.
“The insertion of the proviso in Section 2(1)(b) by the impugned amendment Act is in direct contradiction to the Assam Accord and Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 which was inserted as per the agreement and undertaking executed by the Union of India and the State of Assam known as the Assam Accord, 1985 whereby illegal migrants who have entered Assam from Bangladesh up to March 24, 1971 were ultimately required to be granted citizenship and a specific assurance that illegal migrants entering the state that would be deported back to Bangladesh,” the petition said.