The Citizenship (Modification) Act, 2019 is a “narrowly tailor-made” piece of laws that doesn’t have an effect on the present regime for acquiring Indian citizenship, and authorized migration, on the idea of legitimate paperwork and visa, continues to be permissible from all international locations, the Union authorities informed the Supreme Court docket on Sunday.
These submissions had been a part of an affidavit filed by the federal government in response to petitions by the All Assam College students Union (AASU) and others difficult the validity of the CAA.
Urging the highest courtroom to dismiss the pleas, the federal government stated in its affidavit that the Act “doesn’t in any approach encourage unlawful migration into Assam” and termed it an “unfounded…apprehension”.
“It’s submitted that the present regime for acquiring citizenship of India by foreigners of any nation is untouched by the CAA and stays the identical. It’s submitted that the authorized migration, on the idea of legitimate paperwork and visa, continues to be permissible from all international locations of the world together with from the three specified international locations”, the federal government stated.
The Supreme Court docket is scheduled to take up the petitions Monday.
Explaining its stand, the federal government stated that Article 6 of the Structure deems all migrants in India from Pakistan (together with present-day Bangladesh) as residents of India if such individuals or their mother and father or grandparents had been born in undivided India or such individuals had migrated into India earlier than nineteenth July, 1948. If such individuals had migrated after this date and obtained registered earlier than a reliable officer and had been resident in India for a minimum of six months earlier than the date of registration, then such individuals had been additionally deemed to be Indian residents.
“It’s thus apparent that Article 6 deemed a particular class of migrants post-partition [which clearly took place on religious lines and resulted in large scale migration on religious lines] as residents of India as a result of their very particular circumstances”.
The Centre submitted that CAA “is a benign piece of laws which seeks to supply a leisure, within the nature of an amnesty, to particular communities from the desired international locations with a transparent closing date… the CAA is a selected modification which seeks to sort out a selected drawback prevalent within the specified international locations (Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh) i.e. persecution on the bottom of faith in gentle of the undisputable theocratic constitutional place within the specified international locations, the systematic functioning of such States and the notion of worry which may be prevalent amongst minorities as per the de facto scenario within the stated international locations.”
The federal government stated that the CAA doesn’t search to recognise or present solutions to any type of persecution which may be happening the world over. “In that regard, the CAA is a narrowly tailor-made laws looking for to deal with the precise drawback which awaited India’s consideration for an answer since a number of a long time,” it stated.
The federal government additionally stated that the constitutionality of CAA ought to be examined inside that legislative area and can’t be conflated to increase past that object.