Mahua Moitra, the Trinamool Congress lawmaker had asked the Supreme Court to hear her petition against the Citizenship Act today or on Monday.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Friday filed a petition in the Supreme Court to challenge the Citizenship Amendment Act and asked the top court to hear the case right away, either today or Monday. But the request for the urgent hearing was turned down by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde who directed the lawmaker to approach the court officer who looks at cases to be mentioned before the bench.
Moitra’s petition is the second petition to reach the Supreme Court. The Indian Union Muslim League, a Kerala-based party that sends four lawmakers to Parliament, had yesterday petitioned the court to quash the law that it insisted, discriminates on the basis of religion and strikes at the root of the concept of secularism embodied in the Indian Constitution.
The two petitions have challenged the change in the citizenship law that enables immigrants of faiths other than Islam from three countries – Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan – to get Indian citizenship on the ground that they came to India due to religious persecution because they are minorities.
Many opposition parties had criticised the change in Parliament this week that has also reopened ethnic fault lines in regions such as Assam, which have a history of anti-immigration movements, especially against people from Bangladesh.
Prasanta Patnaik