In a major relief for Centre, the Supreme Court on Wednesday (January 22) refused to pass a stay order on Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Population Register (NPR) and hinted at setting up a constitution bench to hear pleas on CAA. A three-judge SC 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 for interim orders. The SC also said that any interim order in this matter can be passed only by a constitution bench.
The SC has granted four-week time to the Centre to file affidavits in all CAA matters. The SC also said that Assam and Tripura matters will be dealt with separately and asked senior advocate Kapil Sibal to assist in identifying these matters.
The top court also issued the notice on all the petitions and directed the petitioners to compile a list of all categories on which there has been a challenge that the court needs to hear in future.
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 argued for the Centre during the hearing and said the government had been given copies of only 60 of 143 petitions and hence the Centre needed more time to respond.
Before concluding the hearing on the CAA, the SC also directed all other high courts to not pass any order on the new legislation.
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.
