The Supreme Court has requested the union government to provide a response to a petition seeking a halt on the newly implemented Citizenship (Amendment) Rules of 2024, which essentially enforces the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 (CAA) [Indian Union of Muslim League and Others vs Union of India and Others].
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Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, along with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, has directed the union government to submit its reply by 2 April in response to the plea for a stay.
Addressing the parties to the case, the Supreme Court said,
Let submissions be made on the stay application limited to five pages till 2 April.
Let respondents file a 5-page reply to the application by 8 April.
The apex court then said that the matter would be heard next on 9 April:
We direct that the proceedings be listed after three weeks. File the reply only in one case. Response is not needed in all the petitions. Reply can oppose the interim prayer. We will keep this on 9 April.
Arguments in Supreme Court
The union government’s representative, Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, initially requested a four-week extension to submit the union government’s response to the plea for a stay. However, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the petitioners, objected to this proposal.
Sibal argued:
Four weeks for (reply to) an application of stay is far too much… These rules have been notified after four years. Since 2020 they have been going to parliament after every three months and now notified. If citizenship is granted now then there are chances that it cannot be reversed. Under international law once citizenship is granted you cannot take it back… What’s the urgency after four years? They said (earlier) that we are not notifying, therefore, there was no need for stay.
Sibal wanted to know the reason for the abrupt need to inform about the regulations almost four years after the enactment of the CAA. But then, the solicitor general interrupted, saying, “They are seeking a stay on statutory rules.”
According to the Supreme Court’s decision to give the government two weeks to respond, Senior Advocate Indira Jaising, representing the petitioners, stated that the government should guarantee that no citizenship would be given under the existing regulations while the case is ongoing.
“Whether citizenship is granted or not petitioners will not be impacted,” the S-G interrupted again.
“That’s not the issue. Issue is the constitutionality of this,” Jaising gave a counter.
“There is case of a Hindu from Balochistan. If citizenship is granted then how are they affected?” Senior Advocate Ranjit Kumar was surprised.
“They will get the right to vote! We can argue on merits right now,” Jaising responded. She demanded an interim stay. “This court must say that citizenship granted during this period will be subject to orders of this court. We cannot go on with hope and trust jurisprudence anymore,” Jaising said.
“But the infrastructure of state-level committee etc., is not in place,” the CJI pointed out.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal then said if something were to happen, they would approach the court. “No, no nothing is going to happen till then. If something happens we will file an application in this court. If something happens, we will move the court,” he said as the hearing drew to a close.
Case explained
The bench was presiding over a group of approximately 236 petitions related to the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) and the recently announced Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024. The CAA was approved by the parliament on 11 December 2019, and received the President’s approval the following day.
The same day, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) approached the Supreme Court to challenge the law. Subsequently, a significant number of petitions were filed.
The objective of the CAA and it’s rules is to grant citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Parsis who arrived in India on or before 31 December 2014, from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
The CAA modifies Section 2 of the Citizenship Act of 1955, which defines “illegal migrants.”It introduced a new provision to Section 2(1)(b) of the Citizenship Act. According to this provision, individuals belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, or Christian communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, or Pakistan, and who have been exempted by the Central government under the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, or the Foreigners Act, 1946, will not be considered as “illegal migrants”.
Consequently, these individuals will be eligible to apply for citizenship under the 1955 Act. However, the law excludes foreign Muslims from this provision, leading to protests across the country and numerous petitions before the Supreme Court.
The petitioners challenging the law argue that the CAA discriminates against Muslims based on religion. They contend that such religious discrimination lacks reasonable justification and violates the right to equality under Article 14.
On 18 December 2019, the apex court issued a notice to the Union of India regarding this challenge. However, the Court did not suspend the law as the Rules had not been notified, which meant that the law remained in a state of uncertainty. Nevertheless, in a sudden move, the union government notified the rules last week, on 11 March, effectively bringing the CAA into force.
A multitude of applications were filed before the Court, requesting a stay on the Act and Rules. These applications included those submitted by the IUML, Debabrata Saikia, a leader of the Assam Congress, the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (a regional student organisation), the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).
