CAA does not violate fundamental rights

New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019 does not violate any fundamental right or affect the legal, democratic and secular rights of any Indian citizens.

The Central government, in its 129-page affidavit in response to the pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the CAA, termed the legislation legal and asserted that there was no question of it violating constitutional morality which is not an "unruly horse".

Seeking dismissal of the pleas, it said Indian secularism is "not irreligious", rather it takes cognisance of all religions and promotes comity and brotherhood.

The affidavit, filed by B C Joshi, Director in the Ministry of Home Affairs, said the CAA does not confer any arbitrary and unguided powers on the executive as the citizenship to the persecuted minorities of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh would be granted in a manner as specified under the law governing grant of citizenship.

"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.

The existing regime for obtaining citizenship of India by foreigners of any country is untouched by the CAA and remains the same," it said.

The amended law seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain and Parsi communities who came to the country from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde had on December 18 last year decided to examine the constitutional validity of the CAA but had refused to stay its operation.

It had sought response of the Centre on over 100 pleas, including those filed by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, challenging the CAA.

IUML has said that CAA violates the fundamental Right to Equality and intends to grant citizenship to a section of illegal immigrants by making an exclusion on the basis of religion.