NEW DELHI: Days after Kerala government approached the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act, former Mizoram Governor and Kerala BJP leader Kummanam Rajasekharan on Friday opposed the move. Rajasekharan has sought permission to be impleaded into the petition against CAA in support of the Union government. He also emphasised that even the Governor of the state was not consulted before public funds were unnecessarily used for this litigation.
The plea seeks to know where is the legal dispute between the Union and the state as Kerala government filed the suit under Article 131 of the Constitution which says that the Supreme Court is the guardian of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed under Article 14, which states that if there is any violation, then one can go directly to the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution (this being a fundamental right too).
In another major decision, the apex court on Friday asked the government to respond to a petition to declare Centre’s July 31, 2019 notification on National Population Register (NPR) updation as unconstitutional and violative of the fundamental rights of dignity and equality.NPR exercise is scheduled to commence from April 2020. Rule 4 of Citizenship Rules provides for data collected for NPR to be used for National Register of Citizens (NRC).
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde issued the notice to the Centre on a petition filed by Israrul Hoque Mondal from West Bengal along with others.The petition also challenges the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and contended that grant of citizenship based on religion was against the basic structure of the Constitution.The case will be listed along with other petitions on January 22 when the bench is scheduled to hear others as well.