The Supreme Court on Monday issued directions to segregate the batch of petitions challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, and issued a notice to the Centre to file its response within four weeks after the pleas are compartmentalised, Bar and Bench reported.
“As projected by various learned counsel, the matters need to be put in different compartments so the submissions can be confined to those segments,” a bench of Chief Justice of India UU Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat said.
It then adjourned the hearing for directions on October 31.
More than 200 public interest litigations have been filed against the Act, which provides citizenship to refugees from six non-Muslim religious communities from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the condition that they have lived in India for six years and entered the country by December 31, 2014.
The Act, however, is yet to be implemented as its rules have not been framed due to the coronavirus pandemic. In May, Home Minister Amit Shah had said that the law will be enforced as soon as the pandemic ends.
The petitioners have argued that the Act promotes religion-based discrimination and violates Article 14 of the Constitution, which deals with equality before the law.
The petitions against the Act first came up for hearing on December 18, 2019, according to…
