New Delhi. Hearing on the applications filed against the Citizenship Amendment Act i.e. CAA is going to start in the Supreme Court from today. AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi and many organizations had filed an application in the Supreme Court against the implementation of CAA. Owaisi and these organizations argue that CAA is against the basic spirit of the Constitution. That means there is no point in treating everyone equally. For this reason, the petitioners are demanding the court to cancel the CAA.
CAA was recently implemented by the Home Ministry. Under CAA, there is a provision to give Indian citizenship to those coming from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh after being persecuted on the basis of religion. There is talk of giving citizenship under CAA to all those Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians and Parsis who came to India till 31 December 2014. The central government has also made rules for granting citizenship under CAA. There is talk of forming an empowered committee in every district and state to consider citizenship applications. These committees will have officers from the Central Government only. So that the states cannot have any interference in this.
Actually, the governments of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin and Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan are against CAA. These three CMs had announced not to implement CAA in their state. After which the Central Government has made arrangements to place its own officers in the Empowered Committees. Those opposing CAA argue that there is no provision in it to give Indian citizenship to Muslim communities facing religious persecution. For this reason, it is against the principle of equal treatment for all in the Constitution. Now everyone’s eyes are on what stand the Supreme Court takes on CAA.