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The Supreme Court on Thursday refused urgent hearing of a plea seeking to declare the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as constitutional and a direction to all states seeking its implementation.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde expressed surprise over the petition and said this is the first time that someone is seeking that an Act be declared as constitutional.
"Country is going through a critical time, the endeavour must be to bring peace and such petitions don’t help," the Apex Court added.
"This court's job is to determine validity of a law and not declare it as constitutional," the bench also comprising justice BR Gavai and Surya Kant said. The bench said it will hear the petitions challenging the validity of CAA when this violence stops.
The observation came after advocate Vineet Dhanda sought urgent listing of his plea to declare CAA as constitutional and a direction to all states for implementation of the Act.
The plea has also sought action against activists, students and media houses for "spreading rumours".
PM Modi shares Sadhguru's explanation of CAA
Earlier on December 30, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter and shared Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev's video explaining the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) asking people to listen to it and understand the law, amid protests taking place in the country.
The Prime Minister from his other Twitter handle — @narendramodi_in — also initiated a reach-out campaign #IndiaSupportsCAA asking the citizens to support the law informing them that it is about giving citizenship to persecuted refugees and not about taking anyone’s citizenship away.
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