AIMIM and Kerala Government move Supreme Court; seek to restrain Centre from implementing CAA

New Delhi, March 16

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi and the Kerala Government have moved the Supreme Court seeking to restrain the Centre from implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, for which rules were notified recently.

More than four years after Parliament passed the CAA, the Centre had on March 11 paved the way for its implementation by notifying the CAA rules fast-tracking Indian citizenship for undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014.

The Supreme Court had on Friday agreed to take up 237 petitions against the CAA and the recently notified CAA rules on March 19.

Owaisi — one of the petitioners against the CAA — has sought a stay on the implementation of the CAA till disposal of the petitions challenging its constitutional validity. He sought a direction to the Centre that “no applications seeking grant of citizenship status be entertained or processed by the respondents herein under section 6B of the Citizenship Act, 1955 (as it stands amended by the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019) during the pendency of the proceedings”.

The Kerala Government — which had filed an original suit under Article 131 of the Constitution challenging the constitutionality of the CAA — too sought an interim injunction restraining the Centre from implementing the CAA and the recently notified CAA Rules.

“It is submitted that CAA Rules notified much after the enactment of the Impugned Act, nearly more than 5 years, indicates that the Union of India is aware that there is no urgency in implementing the provisions of the Act. It is submitted that the fact that the defendant itself has no urgency in the implementation of the impugned Act itself is a sufficient cause for staying the Rules,” the Kerala Government submitted.

Passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, the CAA was notified on January 10. It 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.

The top court had on January 22, 2020, refused to stay the operation of the CAA and the National Population Register (NPR) and said that ultimately a five-judge Bench might have to decide these issues. Acting on a transfer petition by the Central Government, it had restrained all high courts from passing any orders on the CAA.

Asserting that the CAA did not impinge upon any existing rights of citizens, the Centre had in March 2020 defended the law, saying there was no question of it violating constitutional morality which is not an “unruly horse”.

In an affidavit filed in the top court, the Centre said it won’t affect the legal, democratic or secular rights of citizens and requested the court to dismiss petitions challenging it

The petitioners also included Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, Congress leader and former Union minister Jairam Ramesh, NGOs Rihai Manch and Citizens Against Hate, Assam Advocates’ Association and several law students.