The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is one of the most controversial bills introduced in the Indian Parliament, with the majority of the opposition pushing back against the bill which aims to grant citizenship to certain sections of residents in India.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear today over 200 PILs which are challenging the validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which was passed by the Indian Constitution in 2019, and was widely protested against by a large section of the Muslim community.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi will be hearing as many as 232 pleas on October 31. The plea has been filed by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).
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Earlier, the top court had refused to stay the operation of CAA without hearing a proper response from the Centre. The petitioners from the IUML have challenged the constitutional validity of CAA, saying that it can be used against the rights of many Indian residents.
Ahead of the hearing, the Centre on Sunday urged the top court to dismiss pleas challenging the validity of CAA, stressing that the law does not encourage “illegal immigration” in Assam or any future influx of foreigners in the country.
Many people have spoken out against CAA, saying that the bill can be used to discriminate against a specific religion or a section of society. Protestors and petitioners have also said that CAA can be used by the government specifically to exclude Muslims from society.
In its petition, the IUML has claimed that CAA violated the constitutional Right to Equality and it has the intention of granting citizenship to a section of illegal immigrants by making an exclusion based on religion, as per PTI reports.
Centre came forward to defend the contentious bill, saying that it is a “focused law” that grants citizenship only to members of six specified communities who came on or before December 31, 2014, and does not affect the legal, democratic or secular rights of any Indian.
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