SC sets the ball rolling, CAA hearing to start from December 6

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday granted three weeks’ time to Assam and Tripura to file their responses on a batch of petitions against the constitutional validity of the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act and subsequent Rules within three weeks and asked all the parties to complete the pleadings and file their written submission responses so that hearing can commence from December 6.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta submitted before a bench of CJI UU Lalit, Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi that the Centre has filed its response but sought time on behalf of states. He said the response of both the states were crucial as 52 out of over 250 petitions filed on the issue are specific to Assam and Tripura. Allowing his plea, the court deferred the hearing and asked the counsel to file their submission in not more than three pages and also mention the time to be taken by them to ensure time-bound hearing of the case.
The Centre in its response said the CAA is a benign piece of legislation providing Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and Christians living in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and justified the exclusion of Muslims from the purview of the law by stressing that it was narrowly tailored to protect minorities who have faced persecution in the three Islamic countries for the last 70 years.
The Centre said the SC must look into the provisions of the Assam Accord and the pact between the government of Tripura and the All Tripura Tribal Force under which certain areas were excluded from being settled by CAA beneficiaries.