IUML CHALLENGES CITIZENSHIP ORDER, MOVES TOP COURT

The Indian Union of Muslim League (IUML) on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court challenging May 28 Union Home Ministry order empowering the collectors of certain districts to grant citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian migrants excluding Muslims from neighbouring countries.

It has contended that the government was going ahead with granting citizenship to migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian religions despite the pendency of its 2019 petition challenging the constitutionality of the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019.

In its petition, the IUML has described as illegal the Home Ministry order to grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, but not the Muslims.

The IUML has urged the top court to halt the move granting citizenship to other mig-rants except Muslims till the challenge to the validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 is decided by the court.

Seeking the stay of the Home Ministry order, the IUML citing the top court’s ruling in a plethora of cases has said that “what cannot be done directly will not be permitted to be done indirectly,”

The petition says, “If the order is implemented and the citizenship is given to persons on the basis of their religion and thereafter if the court strikes down the amended Act and rules providing citizenship on the basis of religion as void, then to take back the citizenship of these persons will be a Herculean task and would be near impossible to implement.”

Moreover, such an exercise will render the entire batch of petitions challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 as infructuous, the petition added.

The batch of 2019 petitions including one by IUML while challenging the validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act has also challenged the related amendments in the Foreigners Order

1948 and the Passport (Entry into India) Rules

1950.