New Delhi: In a major relief for Centre, the Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to pass any order to restrain the operation of Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) or National Population Register (NPR). The apex court also hinted at setting up a constitution bench to hear pleas on CAA.
A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde, Justice S Abdul Nazeer and Justice Sanjiv Khanna said the matter will be listed before the SC after five weeks.
While granting four-week time to the Centre to file affidavits in all CAA matters, the bench also said that any interim order in the matter can be passed only by a constitution bench.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for Indian Union Muslim League challenging the new law, urged the court to postpone the process for a few months.
However, Attorney General KK Venugopal opposed it saying it was equivalent to a stay.
“It means as good as granting stay on the operation of the law,” said the AG.
Then the Chief Justice said: “We aren’t going to pass any such order today.”
The court said that Assam and Tripura matters will be dealt with separately and asked senior advocate Kapil Sibal to assist in identifying these matters.
During the hearing, senior advocate KV Viswanathan also raised the issue of NPR and said that the NPR exercise should be postponed because it provides for “doubtful” status on one’s citizenship.
Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi also raised the issue of “doubtful citizen” brought up by Viswanathan and told the SC that in Uttar Pradesh, several households have already been marked out to hint at doubtful status. Sibal stressed that it is possible that these people may lose voting rights.
Attorney General KK Venugopal said the government had been given copies of only 60 of 143 petitions and hence the Centre needed more time to respond.
The SC also directed all other high courts to not pass any order on CAA.
The CAA seeks to grant citizenship to migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain and Parsi communities who came to the country from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.