Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 19: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) but issued notices to the Centre and decided to hear the petitions challenging the Act on April 9.
The court gave the government three weeks – till April 8 time to respond to 237 petitions challenging the law that was notified on March 12 just days before the announcement of the Lok Sabha election dates.
A three-judge bench presided over by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, also issued notices on the petitioners challenging the validity of the CAA to file their counter to it by April 8. The bench, said it will hear the matter on April 9.
Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said there were 236 petitions challenging the Act and 20 applications challenging the Rules, and urged the court to grant him four weeks’ time to file a reply.
Mehta sought to clarify that the Act and Rules “do not take away citizenship of any person. No new person is also being given and only those entered before 2014 are being considered.” The court cautioned that if he was arguing the merits of the case, then it would have to hear the petitioners too.
In addition, the petitioners were given leave to approach if citizenship is granted to any individual before that date; senior lawyers Kapil Sibal and Indira Jaising both made that request, as Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta (appearing for the government) said, “I am not making any statement.”
Senior Advocate Indira Jaising, who appeared for a petitioner, urged the court to direct that no citizenship will be granted pending the final adjudication of the matter or to say in the order that any citizenship granted under the Rules will be subject to the outcome of the petitions. “The point is citizenship once granted cannot be terminated under the law. Under orders of the court, it’s a different matter,” she said.
The court however declined to pass any order on the request. “They don’t even have the infrastructure in place – the district empowered committee, the central empowered committee, nothing is in place,” the CJI pointed out. Jaising said, “But we can’t go on that,” and repeated her request. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who also appeared for a petitioner, said, “The moment something like this happens, give us liberty to move” the court. “Yes,” responded the bench.
The petitioners included the Indian Union Muslim League (a Kerala-based political party) and also opposition leaders Jairam Ramesh of the Congress, Mahua Moitra of the Trinamool Congres and the AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi. The petitioners – who did not oppose the request for more time – have sought a pause on implementation of the “discriminatory” CAA, which they have said is against the Muslim community.
The petitioners told the court they would not oppose the government’s request for more time to study the challenges, but urged the Chief Justice-led bench to order a stay on implementation.
In 2019, after the citizenship bill was cleared by Parliament, multiple challenges were filed. The court did not, however, pause implementation as the rules had not been notified. Last week, arguing in this matter, Mr Sibal said that situation did not apply now, since the rules are notified.
“The problem is… notification was issued after four years. Under the law, rules have to be notified within six months. Now the problem is – if somebody gets citizenship, it will be impossible to reverse,” he said when asked by the court to respond to the government’s request for more time.
“They said (in 2019) they were not notifying rules, so no stay was granted. There is no question of ‘rejection of stay’ (in the earlier instance)… then there were no rules, so there was no stay,” he told the court, laying out his argument for a stay till the challenges to the citizenship law are settled.
“Why have they waited for four years?” he asked, referring to allegations by the Congress and other opposition parties that implementation was delayed to coincide with the 2024 Lok Sabha election. “Let them have as much time, but don’t grant citizenship in meantime,” Indira Jaising argued.
Mr Mehta then said the fact the rules were notified before an election was irrelevant. Under this CAA, non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan fleeing religious persecution can seek citizenship. Persons from Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian communities from these three nations are eligible if they entered on or before December 31, 2014.
The opposition has slammed the government over the timing of the law’s implementation – four years after it cleared the Parliament and days before a general election. The move is “evidently designed to polarise the elections, especially in West Bengal and Assam”, Mr Ramesh had said.
Trinamool boss and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said she doubts the law’s legality and alleged a conspiracy to “snatch citizenship rights”. “BJP leaders say CAA gives you rights. But the moment you apply for citizenship, you become illegal migrants and you will lose your rights. You will lose rights and be taken to detention camps. Please think before you apply,” she said. The government has trashed the allegations.