SC seeks Centre's response on fresh pleas against CAA

The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Central government on fresh petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and tagged the matter with other pleas pending before it.

A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde tagged the fresh plea along with the pending petitions.

The fresh petitions were filed by the Indian Muslim Federation and International Network of Democratic Indian Abroad -- two groups based in the United Kingdom, with members of Indian origin.

The petitions, filed through advocate Adeel Ahmed, said that the members are deeply concerned with the recent turn of events concerning with the CAA and are worried about the well being of not only their kith and kin who continue to reside in India, but also for themselves, since the Act, also has important ramifications for persons of Indian origin, now resident abroad, such as NRIs, Overseas Citizen of India Cardholders.

"The impugned enactment and notifications ex-facie not only violates the fundamental guarantees under the Constitution of India but also comes into direct conflict with the provision of OCI Cardholder under the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955, more particularly against Section 7A of the Act of 1955," the petition said.

It said that the impugned act, by giving such a sweeping grant of citizenship to any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, who entered into India before 2015, by way of grant of certificate of registration or certificate of naturalization, seeks to open a "Pandora's Box" in being discriminatory against granting such persons preferential treatment over and above 'OCI' persons, who otherwise would be considered as Indians except for their current place of residence.

Another plea, filed by a Telangana based organization called Siraz Foundation, contended that in the aftermath of the execution of the CAA and NPR legislations, there could be tremendous violence perpetrated by the state and private actors, in the bid to so-call "cleanse the nation."

"This type of violence can include gender-based violence during conflict, disappearance or extrajudicial killings, custodial violence, violence against refugees and internally displaced women, or women from indigenous or minority groups," Siraz Foundation's petition said.

The apex court recently said that it may consider hearing the batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the CAA after the conclusion of hearing in the Sabarimala case.

Over a hundred petitions have been filed in the apex court for and against the amended citizenship law, which is being protested against at several places across the country.