CAA: Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) moves the Supreme Court seeking a stay of the Citizenship Amendment Rules 2024

Today, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) moved to the Supreme Court of India seeking a stay of the Citizenship Amendment Rules 2024. On March 11, 2024 (Monday), the Central Government notified the rules to implement the controversial CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), 2019. The IUML (lead petitioner) filed an interlocutory application seeking an immediate stay of the implementation of the CAA arguing that the same discriminates against Muslims based on religion and violates the right to equality under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution. It said that the CAA is ‘prima facie unconstitutional’. The application filed by the IUML clarified, “Since the CAA discriminates on the basis of religion, it strikes at the root of the concept of secularism, which is the basic structure of the Constitution. Therefore, one way of looking at the implementation of the act would be to make it religion-neutral and give citizenship to all migrants irrespective of their religious status.” the definition of illegal migrants under Section 2 of the Citizenship Act of 1955 is amended with the introduction of CAA. it added a new proviso to Section 2(1)(b) of the Citizenship Act, which states that migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religions from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan and who have been exempted by the Central government under the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, or the Foreigners Act, 1946, shall not be treated as “illegal migrant”. Hence, such people are eligible to apply for citizenship. This proviso discriminates against Muslims based on religion because of this the IUML moved the SC seeking a stay of the implementation of Citizenship Amendment Rules 2024.