CAA: The Supreme Court on Tuesday (March 19) issued notice to the Centre on a batch of petitions seeking direction to the Centre to stay the implementation of the recently-notified Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024, until the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 has been decided upon by the top court.
The court asked the Centre to file its response by April 8 and posted the matter for hearing on April 9. Petitioners urged the Supreme Court to stay the Citizen Amendment Rules, 2024, however, the court didn’t pass any such order.
These applications have sought a stay on the Rules till the apex court disposes of the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
"It (CAA) does not take away citizenship of any person," Mehta told the bench, also comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra heard the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal who appeared for Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), that the Indian citizenship cannot be taken back once it has been granted to migrant Hindus from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, so an early hearing into the matter was warranted.
The Centre had notified the CAA rules on March 11, nearly four years after it was passed by the Parliament. The Act aims to confer Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants, including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians who migrated from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and arrived in India before December 31, 2014.
