Hearing on petitions filed against CAA postponed in Supreme Court, hearing will now be held on September 19

A hearing on 220 public interest litigations (PILs), including several petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), has been deferred in the country's top court on Monday. On Monday, 12 September, these petitions were to be heard by a bench of Chief Justice UU Lalit and S Ravindra Bhatt. Today, the lawyers appearing in the matter sought deferment of the hearing, after which the bench of Chief Justice UU Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhatt ordered the next hearing on September 19.

Actually, the CAA was passed by the Parliament on 11 December 2019, after which it was opposed across the country. Despite this, the government implemented it on 10 January 2020. Many people reached the Supreme Court against this act. In this law, a provision has been made to give Indian citizenship to people of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian religions who have come to India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. People of these communities who came to India before December 31, 2014, will be given citizenship immediately, while those coming after or next will get citizenship after staying in India for six years.

220 petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court challenging this law. The petitioners include the Indian Union Muslim League, which says the law violates the fundamental right to equality and shows intent to grant citizenship to refugees on the basis of religion. At the same time, those opposing this law have argued that the constitution does not allow discrimination on the basis of religion.

By not mentioning the Muslim community in this law, people of this community believe that it can be misused against them. The protest started in Shaheen Bagh on December 15, 2019, and lasted for about 100 days. Children including Muslim women participated in this. There was also violence in Delhi regarding this, in which about 54 people died.

Refusing to stay the implementation of this law, the Supreme Court on 18 December 2019 issued notice to the Central Government on the petitions. On the other hand, on March 17, 2020, the Central Government filed a 133-page affidavit in this matter and said that there is no wrongdoing in the Citizenship Amendment Act. The Center said the CAA Act is a 'benign law', which does not affect the legal, democratic or secular rights of any Indian citizen. Also, CAA does not violate anyone's fundamental rights. This law was notified on January 10, 2020, but its rules have not been finalized yet.