Supreme Court has intended to hear the petitions challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 on 18 December.
The Amendment of 2019 grants citizenship to the non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who were expelled on the grounds of religion and had entered India before 31 December 2014. They will not be regarded as illegal migrants as defined under Section 2(1)(b) of the Act.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh and Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, All Assam Students Union (AASU), Peace Party, NGOs ‘Rihai Manch’ and Citizens Against Hate, advocate M L Sharma, and many other Parliamentarians, activists, NGOs, former Service officers filed petitions in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
The petitioners state that the Act is “discriminatory and manifestly arbitrary” and violates the fundamental rights, including that of equality before the law, and the basic structure of the Constitution.
“It promotes rather than checks illegal migration and is inextricably intertwined with the bizarre concept of a national ‘National Register of Citizens’, as it does not even attempt to address the humanitarian and logistical issues of excluding millions and is clueless as to where to house them, where to deport them and how to deal with them,” states Congress MP Jairam Ramesh in his petition challenging the Act.
