Citizenship Act: SC refuses to grant stay, gives Centre four weeks to reply

The court said it will not grant any stay on CAA without hearing the Centre on the matter

The Supreme Court on Wednesday made it clear that it will not grant any stay on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) without hearing the Centre and said it may refer pleas challenging the validity of the Act to a larger Constitution bench. The apex court gave Centre four weeks to respond to pleas challenging validity of CAA.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde is hearing a batch of 143 pleas challenging the validity of CAA, including those filed by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh. Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, told the bench that the government has been given copies of around 60 pleas out of the 143 petitions.

He said it wanted time to respond to pleas which have not been served on it. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal urged the bench to put on hold operation of CAA and postpone exercise of the National Population Register (NPR) for the time being. The court said it will not grant any stay on CAA without hearing the Centre on the matter. 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…Read More