The state government said classifications based on religion and country are discriminatory and contravened the principles of secularism.
Published Mar 17, 2024 | 3:32 PM ⚊ Updated Mar 17, 2024 | 3:32 PM
Supreme Court. (Creative Commons)
Kerala has filed a fresh plea in the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, Rules, contending it was discriminatory, arbitrary and contravened the principles of secularism.
The Union government had on 11 March paved the way for the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, with the notification of the relevant rules, four years after the contentious law was passed by Parliament to fast-track Indian citizenship for undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who came to India before 31 December, 2014.
Terming the CAA Rules as “unconstitutional”, the state government said classifications based on religion and country are discriminatory, arbitrary, unreasonable, and contravened the principles of secularism.
“The fact that the defendant (Union) itself has no urgency in the implementation of the 2019 Act is a sufficient cause for staying the 2024 rules,” the plea said.
The Kerala government, which had earlier filed an original suit against the validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), said the Amendment Act and Rules and Orders are bereft of any standard principle or norm in discriminating migrants from other countries such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bhutan, which are sharing international borders with India and to which and from which there has been trans-border migration.
Contending that the CAA was “arbitrary”, Kerala said the Rules was a “class legislation” that fast-tracked procedure for granting Indian citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community members who entered India on or before 31 December, 2014 from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan.
“Classifications based on religion and country are manifestly discriminatory. It is trite and settled law that a legislation discriminating on the basis of an intrinsic and core trait of an individual cannot form a reasonable classification based on an intelligible differentia,” the plea said.
The apex court had on Friday agreed to hear on 19 March the pleas seeking a direction to the Union government to stay the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024 till the disposal of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
With the unveiling of the rules on 11 March, days ahead of the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections, the Modi government kicked off the process of granting Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants — Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians — from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
The rules came into force with immediate effect, according to a gazette notification.
The CAA sparked protests in various parts of the country in late 2019 and early 2020 over alleged discriminatory provisions.
While refusing to stay the operation of the law, the apex court had on 18 December, 2019 issued notices to the Union government on the pleas.
(Disclaimer: The headline, subheads, and intro of this report along with the photos may have been reworked by South First. The rest of the content is from a syndicated feed, and has been edited for style.)
