Supreme Court refuses stay on implementing CAA.

New Delhi, Jan 22 (HS): A Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justice S Abdul Nazeer and Justice Sanjiv Khanna today began hearing over 140 petitions including challenging and in favour of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and said that it would not grant any stay on CAA without hearing the Centre and issued fresh notice to the Centre to respond within four weeks in this regard.

The bench had issued a notice to the Central government on December 18 seeking its response to various pleas filed by a number of organizations including the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on the issue of CAA. The pleas also included petitions by AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Manoj Jha, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and others.

The Citizenship Amendment Law (CAA) extends Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who migrated to India till December 31, 2014.

The Supreme Court, earlier on January 9 had refused to give an urgent hearing on a petition seeking CAA be declared constitutional. Massive protests have rocked the country as opposition have taken to streets demanding the scrapping of CAA.

The opposition parties including Congress, TMC, the Left and others have attacked the government calling the Act unconstitutional and divisive. The government has, however, said that the CAA was not meant to take away the citizenship of any individual, instead, extended citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from neighbouring countries.