No Stay On CAA, Top Court Asks Centre To Respond To Petitions In 3 Weeks

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA. The court also gave the government three weeks – till April 8 – to respond to 237 petitions challenging the law that was notified last week, days before the Lok Sabha election.

In addition, the petitioners were given leave to approach if citizenship is granted to any individual before that date; senior lawyers Kapil Sibal and Indira Jaising both made that request, as Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta (appearing for the government) said, “I am not making any statement”.

Mr Mehta had originally sought four weeks’ time to respond to the petitions.

“We will have to file a detailed affidavit, on merits, to 237 petitions. 20 interim applications are already filed and many are in the pipeline. Realistically, we need four weeks,” he told the court.

The matter was heard by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra. The petitioners included the Indian Union Muslim League (a Kerala-based political party) and also opposition leaders Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and Mahua Moitra of the Trinamool.

The next hearing in this case has been set for April 9.

The petitioners – who did not oppose the request for more time – have sought a pause on implementation of the “discriminatory” CAA, which they have said is against the Muslim community.

The petitioners told the court they would not oppose the government’s request for more time to study the challenges, but urged the Chief Justice-led bench to order a stay on implementation.

In 2019, after the citizenship bill was cleared by Parliament, multiple challenges were filed.

The court did not, however, pause implementation as the rules had not been notified. Last week, arguing in this matter, Mr Sibal said that the situation did not apply now, since the rules are notified.