Hyderabad: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi has urged the Supreme Court to issue directions to the Centre not to implement the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA).
Owaisi, speaking with reporters on Saturday, said he had, through his advocate Nizam Pasha, filed a petition in the court pointing to the urgent need to stay the CAA’s implementation in view of rules being framed for granting citizenship under the Act.
He said “I had earlier filed a petition asking for a stay on CAA and at that time, the Government of India counsel verbally informed the court that since rules were yet to be framed, the matter need not be discussed. Now that the rules have been framed, there is an urgent need to seek a stay on the rules, because if the government gives citizenship based on a discriminatory law, then it will be difficult the turn the clock back.”
He said in Assam, a Supreme Court-monitored National Registry of Citizens (NRC) was done that found 19 lakh non-citizens, of whom around one lakh were Muslims who cannot accommodated under the new law. “Exclusion of Muslims is discriminatory and the SC had held that any allurement to conversion of religion is a crime. Now, people who are not Muslims will get citizenship and that in itself is an allurement,” he said.
“The government waited deliberately to implement CAA and keeping in mind the Lok Sabha elections, the government decision few days before the LS dates were announced. We hope that the SC will give an order favourable in line with our petition,” Owaisi added.
