New Delhi, Dec 18 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will examine the constitutional validity of the amended Citizenship Act, but refused to grant a stay on its operation. 59 petitions have been filed in the apex court challenging the Act, which will provide Indian citizenship to migrants from six non-Muslim communities of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
A bench, headed by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and Surya Kant, issued notice to the Centre and fixed January 22 to conduct hearing on the matter. The Centre will file affidavits on the validity of the law and also counter petitioners’ prayer seeking stay on the Act.
The bench orally instructed Attorney General K.K. Venugopal to publicise, through audio-visual medium, the aims and objects of the amended Act as people don’t know about it. The court observed this request has been made by a petitioner, and though it is unusual, it is worth considering.
The AG replied: “We are happy to do it.”
A battery of senior advocates has been engaged by petitioners to challenge the Act in the top court.
During the brief hearing, some lawyers appearing for petitioners argued for a stay on the operation of the newly enacted law. The AG contested this submission and said there are as many as four judgements stating a law cannot be stayed after being notified. The court replied that it will not grant a stay and fixed the next date of hearing.
One of the senior lawyers, who appeared for one of the parties, said that a stay is not required at this stage, as the Act, which received President Ram Nath Kovind’s assent on Thursday after it was passed by Parliament earlier in the week, has not come into force against the backdrop of framing of rules under the law yet to be done.
Former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi also appeared in the court challenging the Act, according to his son and Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi. “My father and former 3-term Assam Chief Minister Shri Tarun Gogoi dons his lawyer robes to file his case against the Citizenship Amendment Act in the Supreme Court today,” he said in a tweet.
Other petitioners, which include Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress leader and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh, the Indian Union Muslim League, the Peace Party, NGOs Rihai Manch and Citizens Against Hate, advocate M.L. Sharma, and law students among others, have a common issue with the amended Act, which declares members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have come to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014 after facing religious persecution will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship.
Moitra’s counsel had mentioned her plea before the Chief Justice Bobde and sought urgent hearing, but it was denied. The court asked her counsel to go the mentioning officer. Her plea said that the Act is a “divisive, exclusionary and discriminatory piece of legislation that is bound to rend the secular fabric irreparably.”
Ramesh claimed the Act promotes rather than checks illegal migration and is inextricably intertwined with the bizarre concept of a National Register of Citizens, “as it does not even attempt to address the humanitarian and logistical issues of excluding millions and is clueless as to where to house them, where to deport them and how to deal with them”. He contended the Act is manifestly violative of Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution and contrary to the law laid down by the apex court, and also violates the Assam Accord and International Covenants.
The petition by NGOs Rihai Manch and Citizens Against Hate, said that the Act violates the fundamental rights, including that of equality before the law, and basic structure of the Constitution. The plea was filed through advocate Fauzia Shakil.
The All Assam Students Union (AASU) also moved the Supreme Court against the Act, stating due to the continued influx of illegal immigrants in Assam, the Centre has failed to protect the rights of the state’s indigenous people. AASU also claims that the Act violates the obligations of the Centre under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The petition claims the Act attempts to grant blanket exemptions from the provisions of law governing grant of citizenship to a certain class of foreigners in India, who have entered or staying in India without valid documents. It claims it imposes an unreasonable and unfair burden on Indian states in the absence of any budgetary allocation for the illegal migrants expected to take citizenship of India as a result of the guidelines under the Act.
