Supreme Court agrees on petitions seeking ban on CAA rules, hearing to be held on March 19

Supreme Court on CAA: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on March 19 the petitions seeking a stay on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019. Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal mentioned the issue before Chief Justice DY Chandrachud who said the matter would be listed next week.

Various CAA provisions have been challenged in more than two hundred related petitions filed in the top court since 2019. The law aims to provide faster citizenship to non-Muslim refugees who came to India due to religious persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.

Notified rules are unconstitutional and discriminatory - opposition

The CAA was passed by Parliament in December 2019, but the central government issued rules for it on Monday. Opposition leaders started criticizing the notification of the Act. They claimed that the notified rules were unconstitutional, discriminatory and violative of the secular principle of citizenship enshrined in the Constitution. Critics of the CAA also argued that by excluding Muslims from its scope and linking citizenship to religious identity, the law undermines the secular principles enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah gave this statement

However, the Center has said that CAA is about granting citizenship and no citizen of the country will lose their citizenship. Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that CAA will never be withdrawn and the BJP-led government will never compromise with it.