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The Supreme Court on Monday gave three weeks to the government of Assam and Tripura to file their responses to certain complaints challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and fixed December 6 to hear more cases. about the issue.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit has appointed two lawyers namely Pallavi Pratap and Kanu Agarawal to help ensure smooth handling of over 230 petitions by preparing general collections and deciding which petitions to accept. may be the leading ones. .
The bench, also comprising Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi noted the submission of senior advocate Kapil Sibal that the petition filed by the Indian Muslim Union (IUML) could be treated as the leading issue as the plea in this case was complete.
“When we realize that there are different issues that present many issues, in our view the resolution of urgent disputes can be achieved if two-three issues are taken as the leading issues and the preparation of the facilitation is well prepared in advance…
“We have been informed that the petition filed by the Muslim Union of India has ended. The petition was filed by advocate Pallavi Pratap. Therefore, we are appointing her and Kanu Agarawal as nodal counsel,” the order said.
She said that the nodal adviser would consider appointing some of the other leaders, keeping in mind the reasons for geographical and religious segregation among other factors.
She said that complaints related to the issues of Assam and North Eastern states can be treated separately as one of the leading cases.
The bench asked the lawyers to digitally share the collected records with each other and submit notes of not more than three pages.
Assam and Tripura have to submit their replies within three weeks… List these matters before the appropriate court on December 6, 2022, the bench said.
In a fresh affidavit filed on Sunday, the Center urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the plea against the validity of the CAA, stressing that the law does not encourage illegal immigration into Assam or future influx of foreigners into the country.
She also strongly defended the exclusion of some areas of Assam and other North-Eastern states from the CAA application, saying that it was done to protect the ethnic/linguistic rights of the natives and that was not discrimination.
It is a focused law that grants citizenship only to members of six specified communities who arrived on or before December 31, 2014 and does not affect the legal, democratic or secular rights of any Indian, the Home Ministry detailed. stated in the 150-page affidavit.
Also, the existing system of obtaining citizenship for foreigners in any country remains unaffected by the current law and will remain the same, she said.
The CAA controversy sparked protests in various parts of the country in late 2019 and early 2020 complaining of discriminatory provisions. Refusing to stay the operation of the Act, the Supreme Court on December 18, 2019, issued notices to the Centre.
The amended law seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain, and Parsi communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.
IUML, one of the petitioners against the CAA, said in its petition that it violates the Fundamental Rights of Equality and wants to give citizenship to a section of illegal immigrants by excluding them from religion.
After Parliament cleared it, then President Ram Nath Kovind assented to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 on December 12, 2019, turning it into a law.
The IUML petition seeks temporary stay under the CAB and Foreigners Amendment (Order), 2015, and Passport (Entry Rules), Amendment Rules, 2015.
Several petitions have been filed against the constitutional validity of the CAA, including Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, RJD leader Manoj Jha, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi.
Other petitioners include Muslim Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, All Assam Students Union (AASU), Peace Party, CPI, NGOs Rihai Manch and Citizens Against Hate, advocate ML Sharma, and law students.
(Only the title and image of this report may have been edited by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content was pulled directly from an aggregated feed.)
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