[dropcap]T[/dropcap]HE Supreme Court of India today refused to stay the operation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (the Act) and issued notice on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Act.
A battery of lawyers who were present in the court for the petitioners sought to make submissions on the issue of staying the Act. However, senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan informed the Court that the question of stay did not arise at this point as the Centre yet to bring the Act into the force. This was in submission of the Attorney General who argued that the court couldn’t stay the law.
A three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, and Justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant direct the Central Government to file its response by the second week of January 2020.
The matter is now scheduled to be taken up on January 22, 2020.
Many of the petitions challenged the Act for being violative of Articles 14, 21 and 25 of the Constitution and for being against the basic principles of the secularism.
Some of the petitions challenged the Act for being against the Assam Accord, 1985 which was brought to control the illegal immigrants in Assam.
The Act was passed in the Lok Sabha on December 9 and in Rajya Sabha on December 11 and received the Presidential assent on December 12, 2019.
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