Plea filed in SC in support of Citizenship Amendment Act

A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking directions to declare the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) constitutional.

The plea also sought directions to the Election Commission to identify and take stern action against political parties spreading false rumours and violence in the country.

The PIL filed by Mumbai resident Puneet Kaur Dhanda through lawyer Vineet Dhanda is the first plea in the apex court supporting the new citizenship law, seeking directions to declare CAA as "constitutional" which should be implemented by the states aggressively.

Dhanda said in his plea, "The petitioner is filing the present public interest litigation as a concerned citizen over the loss of precious lives and damage to public property across the country, especially in the cities of Delhi and Ahmedabad, and states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Assam and other parts of our country."

The petitioner also sought direction from the top court to take tough action against media houses involved in spreading false information and fuelling rumours against the law.

"CAA is not against the spirit of the Constitution of India and in no sense against any citizen of India," Dhanda said in the petition.

The CAA provides citizenship to non-Muslim migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain and Parsi communities who had entered the country from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.

A total of 59 petitions have been filed in the top court challenging the amended citizenship law.

On December 18, a bench comprising Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and Justices B.R. Gavai and Surya Kant had refused to grant stay on the operation of the law, listing the matter for further hearing in January. The court has issued a notice to the Centre on the matter.

The petitions challenging the law include pleas filed by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in Kerala, citing that the law was against the ethos of secularism and the right to equality provided under the Constitution.IANS