The Supreme Court has refused to stay the execution of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and has also put off hearing a batch of 144 CAA cases challenging the constitutionality of the Act without first hearing the Central Government. Advocate General KK Venugopal said the Government has been served copies of only 60 of the 144 petitions. Foremost among the petitioners are Congress leader Jairam Ramesh who calls the Act a brazen attack on core fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution. The petition of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) led by Assaddudin Owaisi says the CAA violates the fundamental right to equality and aims at granting citizenship to illegal immigrants based on their religion. The SC has given the Government four weeks time to respond to all the petitions. The Court also said it will consider if the matter requires to be referred to a Constitutional Bench.
Several groups and individuals from North East India including the North East Students’ Organisation (NESO), the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and the scion of the royal Tripura House, Pradyot Manikya Debbarma have petitioned the apex court to exclude the region from the purview of the CAA. Pradyot Manikya has also petitioned the apex court for implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) because he feels that several people holding important positions in the present Government of Tripura are not Indian citizens but have come in from Bangladesh and have no empathy with the tribals there. He has also pointed to the fact that even job reservation in Tripura is skewed against tribals and that tribal land is constantly being alienated in favour of non-tribals. Now the apex court has said it would hear the petitions related to Tripura and Assam separately, having regard to the special grounds pleaded in the petitions.
Meanwhile the Khasi Students’Union (KSU) has started distributing pamphlets explaining to people the detrimental nature of the CAA. Questions have been raised as to why the Supreme Court has put off hearing a case that has agitated people, especially the youth across India and which has brought schools and universities to a grinding halt. This is a matter of concern as the Modi Government seems adamant on implementing the CAA at any costs. Questions have now arisen as to why the Government refuses to speak to agitating parties which have come to the streets spontaneously. Instead, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and Home Minister, Amit Shah are repeating blaming the opposition parties of instigating the protests, thereby, discrediting the genuine aspirations of civil society and their capability to protest against an Act they consider unconstitutional. This is unprecedented!