No SC stay on Citizenship Act
The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stay implementation of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act that has triggered massive protests across the country.
It postponed the hearing to January 22 on a bunch of 59 petitions challenging validity of the newly-minted law.
The CJI-led 3-judge bench set the ball rolling by issuing notice to the Centre on the petitions filed by the Indian
Union Muslim League and Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, among others.
The government is defending the law as a humanitarian gesture and Prime Minister Modi has repeatedly asserted that it does not affect Indian citizens at all, but the Opposition says it is part of Modi's agenda to marginalize India’s 20 crore Muslims and goes against the spirit of the country’s secular constitution.
In a related development, the Delhi High Court has agreed to hear a PIL filed by three Jamia Millia Islamia students seeking constitution of a fact-finding committee to look into the police barbarism on Sunday and release of students detained following the protests. It is likely to be heard on Thursday.
The petition in the High Court alleges that Delhi Police "resorted to arbitrary, excessive, discriminatory and illegal force against students, more particularly female students, of Jamia Millia Islamia University, on the false pretext of restoring law and order."
It says students and teachers were protesting peacefully against the new law but the police disrupted the march and used brute force" against them. Seeking appointment of a fact-finding committee of former judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court, the PIL wants no further filing of FIRs against the students and no coercive steps in complaints already registered till the committee gives its report.
The PIL has also sought a direction to the police not to enter the university campus without permission from its authorities.
The petitions before the Supreme Court claim four discriminations in the new Citizenship Act -- between Muslim migrants and non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan; between migrants from these three countries and those from other countries; between residents who migrated due to reasons of religious persecution and those who migrated due to other forms of persecution; and illegal migrants of six specified faiths from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India before 31 December 2014, and those who entered India after 31 December.
The pleas allege that the classification based on religion violates Article 14 and Article 25, and sought the top court’s direction to strike down the amendment.
"The result of the impugned Act will be that a large number of nonIndians, who have surreptitiously entered Assam after 25.03.1971, without possession of valid passport, travel documents or other lawful authority to do so, will be able to take citizenship and reside therein," said the All Assam Students Union in its plea.
Meanwhile, protests resumed in the Jamia university on Wednesday with chants of "Hindu Muslim Ekta Zindabad" as an effort to fight back the government's attempt to give a communal colour to the students' agitation.