New Delhi/March, 17: Asserting that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) does not impinge upon any existing rights of citizens, the Centre on Tuesday requested the Supreme Court to dismiss petitions challenging it.
In an affidavit filed in response to more than 143 petitions challenging the validity of the CAA, the Centre said it won’t affect the legal, democratic or secular rights of citizens.
Maintaining that the CAA was a matter concerning the sovereign power of the parliament, the Centre said it can’t be questioned before courts.
The CAA ndash; which was notified on January 10mdash;relaxes norms for grant of Indian citizenship by naturalization to Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist and Jain and Parsi victims of religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who came to India before December 31, 2014. Around 20 persons were killed in Uttar Pradesh and dozens of others injured in the state and elsewhere, including Delhi, in violent protests against the CAA.
The petitioners contended that grant of citizenship based on religion was against the Basic Structure of the Constitution.
But in its affidavit, the Centre asserted that Parliament was competent to earmark the religious minorities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan for relaxation in the grant of citizenship by naturalization.
There was no question of it violating constitutional morality, it said, adding, the CAA didn’t confer any arbitrary and unguided powers on the Executive as the citizenship to the persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh would be granted in a manner specified under the law governing grant of citizenship.
The top court had on January 22 refused to stay the operation of the CAA and the National Population Register (NPR) and indicated that ultimately a five-judge Bench might have to decide these issues.
On a transfer petition by the Central Government, a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde had restrained all high courts from passing any orders on CAA.
It had also decided to segregate anti-CAA petitions concerning Assam and Tripura from the rest of the petitions. Assam’s problem with CAA is different from rest of the country as the earlier cut-off date for citizenship was March 24, 1971, which under the CAA is now December 31, 2014, it noted.
Petitions against the implementation of CAA in Uttar Pradesh without framing any rules can also be dealt with separately, it added.
Notified by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on July 31, 2019, the National Population Register (NPR) exercise is to commence from April 2020 along with the first phase of Census 2021. The exercise is conducted under Rule 4 of Citizenship Rules which provides for the collection of data for NPR which is a list of usual residents of the country. It lists persons who have resided in a local area for the past six months or more or those who intend to reside in that area for the next six months or more.
