PIL against Citizenship Amendment Act in Bombay High Court

A public interest litigation has been filed in the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) terming it as "arbitrary, unreasonable and violative to the Constitution of India".

The petition was filed by a social worker Urmila Kowe on January 20.

"The Citizenship Amendment Act is violative of the secular nature of the Constitution and is discriminatory," the petition said, adding that the Act covered only a class of minorities and overlooks other persecuted groups.

"The Act is arbitrary, unreasonable, irrational and violative of the fundamental rights of every citizen. The Preamble to the Constitution of India lays down that the State has no religion and there cannot be any discrimination among citizens," the PIL contended.

Kowe's advocate Ashwin Ingole said the petition has sought for a direction to the Maharashtra government to not implement CAA in the state.

The petition is likely to be taken up for hearing on January 22 by a division bench of Justices R K Deshpande and A M Borkar.

The new law aims to give Indian citizenship to Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Jain refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India on or before December 31, 2014.