Supreme Court declines stay on CAA, asks govt for response in three weeks

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court, on Tuesday (March 19), declined to stay the implementation of the citizenship amendment act (CAA).

Additionally, the Supreme Court provided the government with a three-week window, extending until April 8, to furnish responses to 237 petitions challenging the law, which was officially notified last week, shortly before the Lok Sabha election.

Moreover, petitioners were granted permission to approach the court if citizenship is granted to any individual before the specified date.

Senior lawyers Kapil Sibal and Indira Jaising both made this request, while solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing the government, refrained from making any statement initially.

Originally, Mehta had sought four weeks’ time to respond to the petitions.

The Supreme Court bench, led by chief justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and including justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, scheduled the next hearing for April 09.

On March 11, the Centre finalized the rules for executing the citizenship amendment act (CAA), a legislation passed by Parliament four years prior.

The CAA provides citizenship to undocumented migrants of all religions, except Muslims, from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court was deliberating on a cluster of approximately 200 petitions contesting the implementation of the CAA.

Petitioners contended that the CAA unjustly discriminates against the Muslim community, arguing that such religious differentiation is unreasonable and violates the right to equality enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution of India.