Supreme Court to hear 200 PILs including against CAA today

New Delhi, Sep 12: The Supreme Court will have a busy day on Monday as it is scheduled to hear over 200 PILs including a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

A bench of Chief Justice of India UU Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat will hear at least 220 petitions, ANI reported.

The apex court on December 18,2019, had refused to stay the operation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), but had issued notices to the Centre.

The amended law seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain, and Parsi communities who came to the country from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.

Although the court had sought its response by the second week of January 2020, the matter could not come up for a full-fledged hearing due to the COVID-19-induced restrictions.

The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), one of the petitioners that have challenged the CAA, said the act violates the fundamental Right to Equality and intends to grant citizenship to a section of illegal immigrants by making an exclusion based on religion.

The plea filed by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has said the Act is a "brazen attack" on core fundamental rights envisaged under the Constitution and treats "equals as unequal".

"The impugned Act creates two classifications, viz, classification on basis of religion and the classification on the basis of geography, and both the classifications are completely unreasonable and share no rational nexus to the object of the impugned Act i.e., to provide shelter, safety, and citizenship to communities who in their native country are facing persecution on grounds of religion," the plea said as per PTI.

RJD leader Manoj Jha, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi have also filed petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. Other petitioners include those by Muslim body Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, All Assam Students Union (AASU), Peace Party, CPI, NGOs 'Rihai Manch' and Citizens Against Hate, advocate M L Sharma, and law students have also approached the apex court challenging the Act.

The apex court is expected to take up hearing of many cases which have been pending for years.

The CJI-led bench will hear some other PILs including a plea filed by an organisation, We The Women of India, for creating adequate infrastructure under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act across the country for providing effective legal aid to affected women.

According to the plea, domestic violence continues to be the most common crime against women in India despite the law being enacted more than 15 years back.