The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) moved the top court seeking a stay on the implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
The IUML has filed an application in pending petition for stay of implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The Centre had earlier opposed the stay on implementation saying that the law will not be immediately implemented as rules are not framed yet, the IUML said.
The petitioners have told the apex court that they had filed a writ petition against the CAA on the day it got the President's assent in December 2019. Following which the court issued notice to the Centre seeking its response. The Centre had then told the top court that since rules have not been made, implementation will not take place. The writ petition has been pending for 4.5 years.
The petition says that the CAA Rules, 2024 create a highly truncated and fast-tracked process for grant of citizenship to persons covered under the exemption created by Sections 2 (1)(b) of Citizenship Act.
It further states that 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. "Therefore, one way of looking at implementation of the act would be to make it religion neutral and give citizenship to all migrants irrespective of their religious status."
The petition urges the Supreme Court to pass an order staying the implementation of the CAA rules 2024 till the writ petition is pending in the top court.
It has also urged the top court to stay the operation of section 6B in CAA 2019 pertaining to grant of citizenship to persons belonging to only certain religions.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Monday officially notified the implementation of the CAA, paving the way for fast-tracking citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. Under the provisions of the CAA, Indian citizenship will be granted to six minority communities - Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and Parsis - who arrived in India before December 31, 2014, from these three neighboring countries.
Following the official notification, Union Home Minister Amit Shah took to X and said, "The Modi government today notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024. These rules will now enable minorities persecuted on religious grounds in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to acquire citizenship in our nation. With this notification PM Shri @narendramodi Ji has delivered on another commitment and realised the promise of the makers of our constitution to the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians living in those countries."
In 2019, the IUML filed a petition in the top court saying that while they do not oppose the grant of citizenship to migrants, they are aggrieved by the discrimination and illegal classification based on religion. The exclusion of Muslims from the Act amounted to religion based discrimination.