Explained: Citizenship Amendment Act and the legal challenges

The IUML, the lead petitioner, has now moved the SC seeking a stay of the law

Soni Mishra, The Week, March 12, 2024 :

The law – Amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955

The Citizenship Amendment Act, passed by Parliament in December 2019, provides for grant of citizenship to migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian communities who came to India before December 31, 2014.

The law was notified on January 10, 2020.

The legal challenge to the law

The amendment to the citizenship law has been challenged before the Supreme Court. The Indian Union Muslim League had in 2020 filed a petition before the apex court challenging the constitutional validity of the law. Since then, around 250 petitions have been filed challenging the law. The legal challenge to the law came in the backdrop of widespread protests against the CAA, which was described by its critics as being drafted on religious lines and being discriminatory because it excluded from its ambit people belonging to the Muslim community.

In October 2022, a three-judge bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit had passed an order stating that the final hearings in the matter would begin in December 2022 after Lalit's retirement. The case has not been heard since then. It is currently listed before a bench headed by Justice Pankaj Mithal.

The basis of the legal challenge

The main issue raised by the petitioners before the Supreme Court is about CAA being discriminatory in nature and hence violative of Article 14 of the Constitution which states that “the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” The petitioners have expressed the apprehension that CAA could be used, along with the National Register of Citizens, to target Muslims.

An issue also raised by the petitioners is that the CAA, by making a provision for citizenship on religious lines, goes against secularism, which is a basic feature of the Constitution. The court has to decide whether the provision under CAA for citizenship for certain minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh fulfil the necessary criteria of being a reasonable classification under Article 14 or whether it is discriminatory in nature. The classification can be struck down by the court if it decides that it is arbitrary and does not fulfil the requirements of being a reasonable classification.

Another issue before the court is to decide the legality of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955. Section 6A was introduced into the citizenship law upon the signing of the Assam Accord between the union government and the Assam government in 1985. It permits foreign migrants who came into Assam after January 1, 1966, and before March 25, 1971, to apply for Indian citizenship. The CAA provides a different timeline. So if the validity of Section 6A is upheld by the court, then the timeline provided by the CAA would be in violation of it.

The IUML, the lead petitioner in the challenge of the CAA before the apex court, has now moved the court seeking a stay of the law and its rules which were notified by the Centre on March 11. In its petition, the IUML has stated that the Centre had in 2020 averted a stay on the law by arguing that the rules had not been framed.

The government's response

The Ministry of Home Affairs had in October 2022 filed an affidavit before the apex court in which it stated that the law is narrowly tailored to provide citizenship to only those migrants who belong “to the six specified communities from the three countries who had entered into India on or before December 31, 2014.” It said the CAA is a benign piece of legislation which does not affect the legal, democratic or secular rights of any Indian citizen.