SC to Hear Pleas Challenging CAA Implementation on Tuesday

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear pleas seeking a directive to the Centre to halt the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024 until the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, pending before the apex court, are adjudicated upon.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the Indian Union Muslim League, asserting that once citizenship is granted to migrant Hindus, it cannot be revoked, thus necessitating an early hearing of the issues. “We will hear this on Tuesday. There are 190 plus cases. All of them will be heard. We will place a full batch with the IAs (Interim applications),” the CJI said.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, mentioned that there were 237 petitions, with four interim applications filed against the implementation of the rules among the pending ones. The applications were filed subsequent to the Centre’s implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, by notifying the rules four years after the contentious law was passed by Parliament, aiming to expedite citizenship for undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014.

The application, filed by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), one of the petitioners challenging the citizenship law, has sought the court’s direction to ensure that no coercive action is taken against individuals belonging to the Muslim community pending adjudication of the writ petitions. Muslims are ineligible to apply for Indian citizenship under the CAA.