NEW DELHI: The Central Government on Sunday told the Supreme Court that the CAA is a benign piece of legislation which seeks to provide relaxation to specific communities from specified countries with a clear cut-off date and does not affect legal, democratic or secular rights of any of the Indian citizens.
Filing its response to the batch of 220 pleas challenging the constitutionality of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 which are listed before a bench headed by CJI UU Lalit on Monday, the Modi government in its affidavit has said,
“The CAA does not impinge upon any existing right that may have existed prior to the enactment of the amendment and further, in no manner whatsoever, seeks to affect the legal, democratic or secular rights of any of the Indian citizens. It is submitted that the existing regime for obtaining citizenship of India by foreigners of any country is untouched by the CAA and remains the same. It is submitted that the legal migration, on the basis of valid documents and visa, continues to be permissible from all countries of the world including from the three specified countries. the CAA is merely a limited legislative measure, circumscribed in its application which does not affect the existing legal rights or regime concerning citizenship [falling outside the purview of specialised measure] in any manner.”
“The CAA is a specific amendment which seeks to tackle a specific problem prevalent in the specified countries i.e. persecution on the ground of religion in light of the undisputable theocratic constitutional position in the specified countries, the systematic functioning of such states and the perception of fear that may be prevalent amongst minorities as per the de facto situation in the said countries,” the Centre also said.
Laying emphasis on the fact that questions pertaining to entitlement and conferment of citizenship and issues related thereto are within legislature’s plenary domain, the Centre has also said that even if the SC considers exercising its power of judicial review, such review would be very restrictive and limited. “Such decisions are the result of Parliamentary legislative policy based upon the executive — foreign policy decision making for which the constitutional courts may not have the requisite expertise to examine the parameters based upon which such legislative policy is enacted,” the affidavit states.
The provisions of the Act that aimed to grant citizenship to migrants belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan were challenged in a batch of almost 220 pleas.