Supreme Court requests by April 8 the Center’s response to petitions seeking a stay on the Citizenship Act

The Center has been granted three weeks by the Supreme Court to respond to the requests for a stay on the 2019 Amendment Act (CAA) and the 2024 Citizen Amendment Rules.

The Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing for April 9 and requested that the Center submit its answer by April 8.

On Tuesday, DY Chandrachud, the Chief Justice of India, presided over a three-judge panel that was deliberating on a number of 237 petitions and several interlocutory cases.

The rules notifying the Center “create a highly truncated and fast-tracked process for grant of citizenship to persons covered under the exemption created by Section 2(1)(b) of the Citizenship Act, 1955…which is manifestly arbitrary and creates an unfair advantage in favor of a class of persons on the ground solely of their religious identity, which is impermissible under Articles 14 and 15,” according to the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which has filed the lead petition.

A Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, or Christian from Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014, is eligible to apply for Indian citizenship without having to show a valid passport from one of these nations or a valid visa issued by India, according to the rules that the Center announced last week for the CAA’s implementation.

The CAA was approved by the President after being enacted in December 2019, but not before there were demonstrations around the nation against the legislation, which several opposition parties denounced as “discriminatory.”