Asaduddin Owaisi.
Credit: PTI file photo
New Delhi: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has filed a plea in the Supreme Court to stay the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, and rules notified on March 11, 2024, claiming those have "unholy nexus with the National Register of Citizen exercise" and could act as incentive or allurement for Muslim migrants to change their faith for citizenship.
In an application, he asked the court to stay the law as well as the rules until the final disposal of writ petitions challenging their validity.
In his plea, Owaisi, the Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad, argued that the direct consequence of the law and rules is to incentivise Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan to convert their faith before applying for citizenship, thus enabling them to benefit from the relaxed eligibility criteria.
Owaisi asked the court to ensure no recourse to citizenship would be undertaken during the pendency of the proceedings.
"The evil posed by the CAA is simply not of one of under-inclusion of grant of citizenship but is very blatantly the isolation of a minority community to selectively take action against them consequential to denial of citizenship. Any such action taken selectively against Muslims who have been excluded / left out of NRC would be onerous, likely irreversible and completely unconstitutional," his plea contended.
He had already filed the writ petitions seeking a declaration that the provisions of the CAA, 2019 were ultra vires Articles 14, 21, 25 and the basic structure of the Constitution of India, offending the principle of ‘constitutional morality’.
Owaisi's plea contended that when the top court on December 18, 2019, issued notice to the Union government in the matter, an oral submission was made that the Act had not yet been operationalised as no rules had been framed.
However, after notification of the rules on March 11, 2024, it has become imperative for this court to consider the present application for stay as an interim arrangement.
His plea contended that the Amendment Act has an unholy nexus with the ‘NRC’ exercise that has been concluded in Assam and is sought to be initiated in the rest of the country.
"The immediate consequence of operationalisation of the Amendment Act, if the same is not stayed by this court, would be that all non-Muslims who have been left out of excluded from the NRC in Assam would be given the opportunity to apply for citizenship under the 2024 Rules leaving only Muslims who have been left out/ excluded from the NRC to the mercy of the executive to face action consequential to loss of citizenship," it said.