Supreme Court refuses to put stay on citizenship law, gives Centre four weeks to respond
New Delhi/IBNS: Refusing to put an interim stay on the new contentious citizenship law, the Supreme Court on Wednesday gave four weeks' time to the Centre to respond to the 80 odd new petitions challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).
During the hearing, Attorney General KK Venugopal, who was arguing for the Centre, said the government was given the copies of only 60 of 143 petitions so it needs more time to respond.
The Supreme Court on Dec 18 had refused to put a stay on the CAA, which aims to grant citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Parsi, Jain but not Muslim refugees who came to India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh before 2015, issuing a notice to the Centre over 60 petitions filed against the new law.
Advocate Kapil Sibal, who was representing Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) (one of the petitioners) in the court, on Wednesday urged the top court to put an interim stay on the law as the Centre has already started the process of the CAA in Uttar Pradesh.
However, the top court refused to put a stay and said hearing will resume after five weeks from now.
The top court has also said a batch of petitioners raising the issue of Assam will be heard separately. People of Assam are opposing the grant of citizenship to any refugee who came to India from the three neighbouring countries irrespective of his religion.
The Opposition parties and the protesters against the law, which has been notified by the Union Home Ministry effective from Jan 10, are accusing the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of violating the Constitution by hurting the secular fabric of the nation.
Apart from the IUML, Congress, DMK, CPI, CPI-M, AIMIM, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra, Kamal Haasan's MNM had also filed petitions which were heard by a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sharad Arvind Bobde.
The hearing took place amid the nationwide protests against the CAA. Over the last one month, the country saw various students protests with few of them turning violent.
After Assam, violent protests were witnessed by West Bengal, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, the protesting students of Jamia Millia Islamia University were allegedly assaulted by Delhi Police and later a similar attack took place on the students of Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh.
At least 20 people were killed in protests which took place in Uttar Pradesh.
Remaining firm on his stand, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said anyone can continue with his protests but the government will not revoke CAA.
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