Supreme Court to hear over 200 petitions seeking a stay of CAA rules today

The Supreme Court of India is set to hear approximately 200 petitions challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) today, March 19. These petitions seek a stay on the CAA's implementation and the Citizenship Amendment Rules 2024.

The CAA was implemented by the Central government on March 11, five years after its parliamentary approval in December 2019. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, will consider the arguments presented by senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who represents the Indian Union Muslim League.

Sibal argued that once Indian citizenship is conferred to Hindu migrants, it cannot be retracted, thus making a swift hearing necessary.

In 2019, the Indian Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which seeks to grant Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who arrived before December 31, 2014.

This includes Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians. The introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Rules prompted the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), a political party based in Kerala, to file a petition with the Supreme Court. The IUML has called for a halt to the enforcement of these rules and the controversial law, arguing that no punitive action should be taken against Muslims, who are not covered by the law.

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