New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear a batch of 144 petitions challenging the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act on Wednesday.
A bench, comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices S Abdul Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna, which had issued notice to the Centre on various pleas, is expected to hear over 140 petitions, including those filed by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, according to reports.
The list of petitioners includes several political parties — the chief of them being the Congress, the DMK, CPI, CPM, Indian Union Muslim League or IUML, Asaduddin Owasi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and Kamal Hassan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam.
The petitions contend that the new law is illegal and stands against the basic structure of the Constitution. They also say the law is against the right to equality as it will grant citizenship on the basis of religion. Some of the petitions have also sought a freeze on the legislation which came into force on January 10.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain and Parsi communities who came to the country from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.
Comments are closed.