Indian Union Muslim League Moves SC Against CAA

New Delhi: The Indian Union Muslim League on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the implementation of Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024 notified by the Centre on Monday till the pendency of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 before the apex court.

The Centre on Monday notified the rules four years after the contentious law was passed by Parliament to fast-track citizenship of non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who came to India due to persecution before December 31, 2014.

The application, filed by IUML which is one of the petitioners who have challenged the citizenship law, has sought the top court’s direction to ensure no coercive action is taken against people belonging to the Muslim community pending adjudication of the writ petitions.

The petitioner, a Kerala-based political party, has urged the apex court to direct the Centre to provisionally permit people belonging to the Muslim community also to apply for citizenship and submit a report on their entitlement.

The Democratic Youth Federation of India has also filed a separate application seeking a stay on the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024. The apex court is already seized of a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of CAA.

According to the CAA, Muslims cannot apply for Indian citizenship under the law.

In its application, IUML has urged the top court to stay the “continued operation of the impugned provisions of Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019; and Citizenship Amendment Rules 2024, which would result in valuable rights being created and citizenship being granted to persons belonging to only certain religions, thereby resulting in a fait accompli situation, during the pendency of the present writ petition.”

The IUML also said about 250 petitions challenging the provisions of the CAA were pending before the top court.

“If in case this court finally decided the CAA as unconstitutional, then these people who would have got citizenship under the impugned Act and rules would have to be deprived of their citizenship or stripped of their citizenship, which would create an anomalous situation,” it said.

“Therefore, it is in the best interest of every person to defer the implementation of CAA and impugned rules till this court finally decides the matter,” the application said.

“The government did not consider it as urgent to implement it for the past 4.5 years. Therefore, to wait till the final decision of this court would not affect anybody’s rights or interest,” the application said.

According to the Gazette notification, the rules come into force with immediate effect and it will facilitate grant of Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.