The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in its written submission to the Supreme Court has questioned the central government's claim that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was meant to give citizenship to minorities who fled neighbouring countries fearing persecution.
Filing the written submissions ahead of the hearing on April 9, the IUML questioned, "What about Ahmadiyyas of Pakistan, Muslims in Myanmar, Tamil Hindus of Sri Lanka, Buddhists of China?"
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a batch of over 200 petitions filed over the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019. Petitions have also been filed seeking a stay on the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 and the Citizenship Amendment Rules 2024.
The central government implemented the Citizenship Amendment Act last month, five years after it was passed in Parliament.
The submissions stated that as per the Citizenship Act, Hindus, Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, and Jains from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh are eligible for the benefit under the CAA only on the condition that they entered India before December 31, 2014.
The IUML said the Centre's claim that the Act will help persecuted minorities is "fundamentally flawed".
"It is ex facie clear that the foundational claim that the CAA aims to extend citizenship benefits to persecuted minorities is fundamentally flawed, and that it fails to do so as it arbitrarily chooses between persecuted groups of different kinds. This is not merely an issue of under-inclusion per se. Rather, the exclusions demonstrate the lack of any rational nexus to the stated object of enacting a refugee policy," reads the written submission.
"Any refugee policy must be fair, reasonable, non-discriminatory, and a universal refugee policy that takes into account the needs of all those who seek refuge in India and does not discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics," the submission stated.
The IUML also said there was a lack of clarity in the current Citizenship Act on dual citizenship. "CAA and the Rules do not require the applicant to renounce the citizenship of their native country. This creates a possibility for dual citizenship, which is directly violative of the parent Act. This makes the rules both ultra vires and manifestly arbitrary," it submitted to the Supreme Court.
The CAA, enacted by Parliament on December 11, 2019, has been a subject of intense debate and widespread protests across India.
The CAA amends the Citizenship Act of 1955 to provide a fast-track pathway to Indian citizenship for migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who belong to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist, and Christian communities and who entered India on or before December 31, 2014, due to facing religious persecution in their home countries.
