New Delhi: The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a plea challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act filed by a journalist.
A bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant issued notice to the Centre on journalist Saket Gokhale’s plea and tagged them along with over 160 petitions challenging the CAA which are listed for hearing this month.
The top court, on December 18 last year, had decided to examine the constitutional validity of the CAA, while refusing to stay its operation. Hearing a batch of 143 petitions, the Supreme Court, had made it clear January 22 that the operation of the CAA will not be stayed and gave the government four weeks to respond to the pleas.
The court had also said that pleas concerning Tripura and Assam, as well as the matters related to Uttar Pradesh, which is going ahead with the implementation of CAA without framing any rules, can be dealt with separately.
It had also said the modalities of hearing the batch of petitions on the CAA will be decided in-chamber and the court may fix them for day-to-day hearing after four weeks. President Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 December 12, turning it into an Act.
Several petitions have been filed, challenging the constitutional validity of the CAA. Among those who have filed pleas are the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, RJD leader Manoj Jha, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi.
The IUML said in its plea that the CAA violates the fundamental right to equality and intends to grant citizenship to a section of illegal immigrants by making exclusion on the basis of religion.
The plea filed by Ramesh said the Act is a ‘brazen attack’ on the core fundamental rights envisaged under the Constitution and treats ‘equals as unequal’.
PTI