AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi moves SC against CAA: SC to hear petitions against CAA and the Rules, 2024 on March 19

In a notification dated March 11, 2024, the Home Ministry notified the rules for the implementation of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019. This notification resulted in the filing of various petitions seeking to stay the implementation of CAA. Recently, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) President Asaduddin Owaisi also filed a petition in the Supreme Court (SC) to stay the CAA, 2019 and ruled notified on March 11 stating that those rules have ‘unholy nexus with the National Register of Citizen (NRC) Exercise’. In the petition, he asked to stay the law and rules until the disposal of petitions challenging the validity of the CAA and newly notified rules. The AIMIM President contented “The evil posed by the CAA is simply not of one of under-inclusion of grant of citizenship but is very blatantly the isolation of a minority community to selectively take action against them consequential to denial of citizenship. Any such action taken selectively against Muslims who have been excluded/left out of NRC would be onerous, likely irreversible and completely unconstitutional.” He further argued that “The immediate consequences of operationalization of the Amendment Act, if the same is not stayed by this court, would be that all non-Muslims who have been left out of excluded from the NRC in Assam would be given the opportunity to apply for citizenship under the 2024 Rules leaving only Muslims who have been left out/excluded from the NRC to the mercy of the executive to face action consequential to loss of citizenship.”

Along with this, various other applications were submitted in the SC seeking to stay the law and the Rules. Earlier on March 12, 2024, IUML (Indian Union Muslim League) moved the SC seeking a stay of the Citizenship Amendment Rules 2024. It said “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.” Moreover, the Assam Congress Leader Debabrata Saikia, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government, and Law Minister of Kerala P. Rajeeve were also part of this issue. Speaking on the issue, Mr. P. Rajeev said, “The CAA is against the basic principle, fundamental principles of the Constitution and we pray to declare this as an anti-constitutional, an ultra vires to the Constitution. That was the prayer in the earlier suit. Now we have decided to approach the Supreme Court again. We have delegated our advocate general to interact with our senior counsel in the SC and take proper action to approach the SC.” Recently, the SC had announced to hear the petitions related to CAA and Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2024 on March 19, 2024.