Supreme Court to hear fresh batch of pleas against CAA

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a fresh batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) but refused to pass any interim order to stay its operation.
A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy issued notice to the Centre seeking its response on the petitions and tagged them with other petitions filed earlier against the citizenship law.
The court passed the order on petitions filed by Tamil Nadu Thoweed Jamat, All Assam Law Students’ Union, Muslim Students’ Federation (Assam) and some others.
More than 150 petitions have so far been filed in the apex court on the issue.
Tamil Nadu Thoweed Jamat, which filed the petition through advocate Vikas Singh Jangra, alleged that the amendment is against the fundamental principle of ‘secularism’, which is enshrined as basic structure of the Constitution as it has introduced religion as a reference point for acquisition of citizenship for migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Muslim Students’ Federation in its plea alleged that the amended law is in direct contradiction to the Assam Accord of 1985 and Section 6A of the Citizenship Act and pleaded the apex court to declare the amendment as unconstitutional and illegal.