The Indian Union Muslim League party on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court seeking an immediate stay on the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2024 that were notified by the Centre on Monday, reported Live Law.
The rules notified under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act lay out the procedure by which minorities persecuted on religious grounds in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan can acquire Indian citizenship.
The rules empower district-level committees to scruticise applications and administer an oath of allegiance to those seeking to become Indian citizens. Applicants have to submit any of nine documents listed by the home ministry to prove that they are citizens of Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act was passed by Parliament in December 2019. It aims to provide citizenship to refugees from six minority religious communities, except Muslims, from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the condition that they have lived in India for six years and had entered the country by December 31, 2014.
The Indian Union Muslim League is the lead petitioner in a group of pleas challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
The party said that the Act has linked citizenship to religion and has introduced a classification solely on the basis of religion. This, the plea said, is "prima facie unconstitutional" and ought to be stayed by the Supreme Court.
The Act has been widely criticised for excluding Muslims, sparking massive protests across the country. Indian Muslims fear that the law could be used, along with the nationwide National Register of Citizens, to harass and disenfranchise them. The National Register of Citizens is a proposed exercise to identify undocumented immigrants.
While protests against the Act in the rest of India revolved around the law’s alleged anti-Muslim bias, ethnic groups in Assam and the rest of the North East feared they would be physically and culturally swamped by migrants from Bangladesh.
Won’t implement CAA, say Opposition CMs
After the rules were notified on Monday, the chief ministers of some Opposition-ruled states said that they would not implement the law.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Tuesday said that the divisive agenda of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the Centre has weaponised the Citizenship Act, “turning it from a beacon of humanity to a tool of discrimination based on religion and race through the enactment of Citizenship (Amendment) Act”.
He added that after his party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam, came to power in 2021, it passed a resolution in the Assembly urging the Union Government to repeal the law to safeguard the unity of, uphold social harmony, and protect the ideal of secularism enshrined in the Constitution.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said that the law will not be implemented in his state describing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act as a law that creates division along communal lines.
“Denying citizenship to Muslims while granting citizenship to non-Muslims who immigrated to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before 31 December 2014, is a blatant violation of the Constitution,” he said in a tweet. “This amounts to defining Indian citizenship on the basis of religion. It is an open challenge to humanity, the nation’s secular tradition and its people.”
Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said that the Trinamool Congress will oppose the National Register of Citizens if the Union government tries to carry out the exercise after the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act.
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