Hyderabad: A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed before the High Court seeking to declare Section 14-A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 as void and to declare the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) rules 2003 as ultra vires of the parent Act.
Mr S.Q. Masood, a city-based social activist, and advocate Namrata Jaiswal who filed the PIL urged the court to quash the Gazette Notification No. SO 2753, issued by Union home ministry regarding the general citizen registration.
The petitioners submitted in the high court that Section 14-A and Citizenship Rules were the violative of Articles 14,19 and 21 of the Constitution.
“As for the new gazette the questions to be asked by the Census officers or enumerators to collect the population details were materially different than the questions asked under the updation of National Population Register,” the petitioners said.
It was submitted to the court that the circulars suffers from legal malafides, because the clubbing of the National Population Register 2020 and Census 2021 was not a lawful exercise of powers conferred on the authorities under the Census Act, 1948 and the Citizenship Rules.
“The questions asked under the Census do not seemingly offend the privacy of a person. However, the nature of the information sought for the updation of National Population Register is intrusive,” the petitioners said.
The Union home ministry secretary, the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India and the Telangana State government were named as respondents.
