The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to Central Government in a batch of fresh petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019.
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which was notified on January 10, grants Indian citizenship to non-Muslim minorities (Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian) who migrated to India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh till December 31, 2014, following persecution.
On December 18, 2019, the Supreme Court had decided to examine the constitutional validity of the CAA, while refusing to stay its operation.
President Ram Nath Kovind had given his assent to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 on December 12, turning it into an Act.
A bench comprising Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justices A.S. Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy, taking up the matter through video-conferencing, issued the notice on the pleas filed by All Assam Law Students Union, Tamil Nadu Thoweed Jamath, Shalim, Muslim Students Federation (Assam) and Sachin Yadav and ordered their tagging with the earlier batch of PIL filed on the same issue.
However, the bench refused to pass any interim order to stay its operation and issued notice.
All these pleas had been filed earlier in February 2020 but came to be listed before the Supreme Court now due to national lockdown and restricted functioning of the Apex Court.
