• The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to respond within three weeks to applications seeking a stay on implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024 till the apex court disposes of the pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

• The Supreme Court, however, refused to stay the operation of the Rules that would give effect to the CAA.

• The Centre, on its part, told the bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud that the CAA does not take away the citizenship of any person.

• The bench, also comprising Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, issued notice to the Centre on the 20 applications seeking a stay on the implementation of the Rules returnable within three weeks.

Citizenship (Amendment) Act

• The Citizenship Act, 1955 was enacted to provide for the acquisition and determination of Indian citizenship. 

• On September 7, 2015 and July 18, 2016, the government of India issued two notifications for amending the Passport (entry into India) Rules, 1950 and the Foreigners Order 1948. 

• The government introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 to further amend the Citizenship Act, 1955.

• The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 passed by the Parliament on December 11, 2019.

• President Ram Nath Kovind on December 12 gave his assent to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, turning it into an Act.

• Under CAA, the central government can grant citizenship to undocumented migrants of all religions — except Muslims — from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who arrived in India due to religious persecution before December 31, 2014. These include Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians. 

• On March 11, 2024 the Centre paved the way for the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, with the notification of the relevant rules, four years after the law was passed by the Parliament, to fast-track citizenship for undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Protests against CAA

• The CAA had sparked protests in various parts of the country in late 2019 and early 2020 over alleged discriminatory provisions. Over a hundred people lost their lives during the anti-CAA protests or police action.

• The amendment to the citizenship law has been challenged before the Supreme Court. Around 250 petitions have been filed challenging the law.

• The main issue raised by the petitioners before the Supreme Court is about CAA being discriminatory in nature and hence violative of Article 14 of the Constitution which states that “the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India”.

• An issue also raised by the petitioners is that the CAA, by making a provision for citizenship on religious lines, goes against secularism, which is a basic feature of the Constitution.

Why states can’t deny implementation of CAA?

• The central government received resolutions adopted by Legislative Assemblies of Meghalaya, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Punjab against the CAA. 

• State governments of Kerala and Rajasthan have also filed original suits in the Supreme Court under Article 131 of the Constitution of India (Original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court).

• The distribution of legislative powers of Parliament and state Legislatures are mainly delineated in Articles 245 to 253 under Part XI of the Constitution read with the Seventh Schedule thereto. 

• Article 246(1) of the Constitution of India provides exclusive powers to Parliament to make laws with respect to any of the matters enumerated in List I of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution.

• Entry under serial no.17 of List I – Union List provides as under: “Citizenship, naturalization and aliens”.

• It was in exercise of the aforesaid powers that Citizenship Amendment Bill was considered and passed by both Houses of the Parliament and became a law.

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