In one of the most important and most anticipated hearings in India's history, the Supreme Court on Wednesday will take up the batch of petitions challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA).
Earlier, the Supreme Court said there would be no stay on the Citizenship Amendment Act and fixed January 22 as the date to conduct hearing on nearly 60 petitions challenging the Act.
Among those who have filed petitions against the Act are the All Assam Students Union (AASU), Asom Gana Parishad, Assam Pradesh Congress Committee, an association of lawyers from Assam, etc.
The indigenous people of the north-east and Assam have revolted against the law which, they believe, would allow outsiders to settle in their territory, changing the local demographics and threatening their cultural homogeneity.
The petitioners in the Supreme Court cut across political party lines and come from all walks of life from across the country.
All hopes are now pinned on theSupreme Court and it is expected that it will rise to the occasion byeffectively and decisively hearing the petitions as soon as possible to bringan end to the current impasse between the State and citizenry.
As it is a constitutional issueinvolving more than 60 petitions, the hearing will probably be anadministrative one for fixing the schedule. Further, since the presentpetitions raise questions of constitutional importance the case may be referredto a larger bench of 5 or more judges as per Article 145(3) of theConstitution.
The Centre will file affidavits on the validity of the law and will also file a reply to the petitioners' prayer seeking stay on the Act.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde orally instructed Attorney General K K Venugopal to publicize the aims and objects of the amended Act as people don't know about it.
The Government has turned a blindeye to the large- scale pan-India protests against the CAA, NPR (NationalPopulation Register), and the NRC (National Register of Indian Citizens), andproceeded to bring the CAA into force throughout the country on January 10,2020.
