SC postpones hearing on pleas against CAA Act

New Delhi: The Supreme court on Monday adjourned the petitions challenging the BJP-led Union government's Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, to December 6 2022, Live Law reported.

The bench of Chief Justice of India UU Lalit and Justices Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi decided to take Indian Union Muslim League's petition in the matter as the lead. It appointed two lawyers as nodal counsels to ensure all the compilations were completed and ready by the next hearing date.

"Having noted that there are various matters projecting multiple issues, in our view, the resolution to instant controversy can be achieved if 2-3 matters are taken as lead matters, and convenience compilations are prepared well in advance. Such a process will make the conduct of the proceedings easy. We have been appraised that the Writ Petition filed by Indian Union Muslim League has been complete. The petition has been filed by Advocate Pallavi Pratap. We therefore appoint her and Mr Kanu Agarawal as nodal counsels," Live Law quoted the top court.

On the CAA issue, there are more than 200 petitions lodged in the court. The petition filed by the IUML states that not granting citizenship to Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan is discrimination and illegal classification based on religion. But Centre maintained that the amendment would never affect the legal, democratic and secular rights of any "Indian citizens".

Court advised the nodal counsels to designate some other matters as lead matters in view of the geographical and religious classifications and other things. It directed to classify petitions on issues from Assam and North-East separately.

The court later granted Assam and Tripura time to file their responses to the affidavit filed by the Centre on issues from the North-Eastern region.