On March 19, the Supreme Court of India declined to halt the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Instead, the court granted the Central government three weeks until April 8 to address 237 petitions challenging the recently notified law, which was introduced just days before the Lok Sabha Elections.
Supreme Court issues notice to Centre on the pleas seeking stay on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 and Citizen Amendment Rules, 2024.
Supreme Court asks the Centre to file its response by April 8 and posts the matter for hearing on April 9. pic.twitter.com/tC7UJ7AbJs
— ANI (@ANI) March 19, 2024
Additionally, petitioners were granted the option to approach the court if citizenship is granted to any individual before the given date. Senior lawyers Kapil Sibal and Indira Jaising made this request, while Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, representing the government, refrained from making any definitive statement, stating, “I am not making any statement.”
Initially, Mr. Mehta had requested a four-week period to respond to the petitions. “We will need to submit a detailed affidavit regarding the merits of the 237 petitions. Twenty interim applications have already been filed, and many more are in progress. Realistically, we require four weeks,” he informed the court.
The case was presided over 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, as well as opposition leaders such as Jairam Ramesh from the Congress and Mahua Moitra from the Trinamool Congress.
