The Supreme Court of India.
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New Delhi: Kerala's Indian Union Muslim League and others on Tuesday filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to stay the implementation of Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024 notified on March 11, 2024.
It also asked the court to stay the continued operation of CAA, 2019 and rules which would result into valuable rights being created and citizenship being granted to persons belonging to certain religions only, thereby resulting into fait accompli situation.
The plea also asked the court for direction to the Union government that pending adjudication of the present writ petition, members of any religion or denomination, who have been excluded on account of his/her religion(s), from the purview Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 and Citizenship Amendment Rules 2024, may not be subjected to any coercive action under the respective statutes, i.e. Citizenship Act, 1955, Passport Act, 1920, Foreigners Act, 1946 and any rules or orders made thereunder.
The applicant, which had earlier filed a writ petition, also urged the court to pass an order not to take coercive action against persons belonging to Muslim community who have been deprived of the benefit to apply for citizenship under the rules pending adjudication of the writ petition.
In the alternative, it asked the court to direct the Union government to provisionally permit persons belonging to the Muslim community to also apply for citizenship and submit a report on their entitlement.
The applicant contended no prejudice would be caused if the interim order is granted and on the other hand, grave prejudice and irreparable harm would be suffered by the petitioners.
It said there are about 250 petitions are pending before the court challenging the provisions of CAA, 2019.
"If in case this court finally decided the CAA as unconstitutional, then these people who would have got citizenship would have to be deprived of it which would create anomalous situation," it said. Therefore, it is in the best interest of every person to defer the implementation of CAA and rules till this court finally decided the matter, it added.
"Moreover, the act was passed in the year 2019 and the government in fact waited for 4.5 years to notify the rules. The government did not consider it as urgent to implement it for past 4.5 years. Therefore, to wait till final decision of this court would not affect anybody's rights or interest," it said.
The CAA proposed to give citizenship to those persons who are illegal migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, who entered into India on or before December 31, 2014.
The applicant also stated since the CAA discriminates on the basis of religion, it strikes at the root of the concept of secularism, which is the basic structure of Constitution.
"The CAA Rules 2024 violated Articles 14, 21, 25 and 51 of the Constitution as well India's obligation under the International law," it said, contending those were manifestly arbitrary, discriminatory and exclusionary to one group and left out the migrants persecuted in other countries.