Amid the intense violence over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the Supreme Court urged petitioners to stop making any pleas at this point.
The bench headed by the Chief Justice SA Bobde denied a petition filed to make the law constitutional until the violence across the nation comes to a halt.
“There is so much of violence. The nation is facing difficult times…the attempt must be to bring peace…these petitions don’t help the cause,” the Supreme Court said in response to a petition.
Advocate Vineet Dhanda, in a petition, requested the court to publicize the new citizenship law through media and advertisement, and urge states to implement the same.
The plea also urged the Election Commission to take a strict action against those opposing the law and spreading rumours.
“How do we declare an Act of the Parliament as being constitutional?” There is always a presumption of constitutionality. For the first time, I am hearing of such a prayer. The court has to decide the validity of a law, not declare that a law is constitutional,” the bench headed by Justice Bobde replied.
The court said it can’t hear the petitions urgently and would take appropriate decisions after the row ends.
Earlier this month, around 60 petitions were filed at the apex court questioning different aspects of the law including relaxation of conditions for six non-Muslim communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan for Indian citizenship.
To this, the Supreme Court directed the Center to respond on this by January 22, 2020.
In a reply to SC on January 08, 2020, the Centre urged to transfer all petitions filed at the state high courts to the SC consideration. Now, SC is due to hear the plea on January 10, 2020.
