Following the Union Government’s notification of the principles to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) moved to the Supreme Court and filed a plea searching for a keep on its implementation in the nation. IUML, a political social gathering main the cost towards the CAA in a batch of writ petitions earlier than the Supreme Court, sought a direct keep of the newly notified guidelines. It additionally demanded an pressing listening to on the matter.
What did IUML say in its plea?
In its interlocutory utility submitted throughout the ongoing writ petition, IUML contended that the presumption of constitutionality usually afforded to statutes doesn’t apply when laws is deemed “manifestly arbitrary.” The petitioner argued that by linking citizenship to faith and introducing a classification based mostly solely on non secular grounds, the Act seems “prima facie unconstitutional and discriminatory” and due to this fact warrants intervention from the Supreme Court in the type of a keep order.
Highlighting its stance additional, the petitioner emphasised that because the CAA remained unimplemented for 4.5 years, deferring its implementation till the Court’s closing resolution wouldn’t trigger any prejudice. Meanwhile, it will create an uncommon state of affairs if individuals who obtained citizenship by means of the CAA are to have their citizenship finally revoked in the occasion that the Court guidelines that the statute is unconstitutional, it added.
IUML objects CAA based mostly on faith
IUML clarified its place, stating that it doesn’t oppose granting citizenship to migrants however objects solely to the exclusion based mostly on faith. “Since the CAA discriminates on the basis of religion, it strikes at the root of the concept of secularism, which is the basic structure of the Constitution. Therefore, one way of looking at the implementation of the act would be to make it religion-neutral and give citizenship to all migrants irrespective of their religious status,” it acknowledged, as per the Live Law.
What is CAA?
On Monday, the Centre carried out the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, notifying the principles 4 years after the contentious legislation was handed by Parliament. The legislation was handed to fast-track citizenship for undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who got here to India earlier than December 31, 2014.
With the revealing of the principles that got here days forward of the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections, the Modi authorities will now begin granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants — Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians — from the three nations. The guidelines come into power with instant impact, in keeping with a Gazette notification.
