The Kerala government approached the Supreme Court on March 16, seeking an interim injunction on the implementation of the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA), the rules for which were notified by the Union government recently.
According to reports, the Supreme Court will take up all pending petitions for staying CAA on March 19. Over a 100 writ petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Act are pending in the Supreme Court.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was passed in the Lok Sabha on December 11, 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act of 1955 and prohibited a foreign illegal migrant (a person without valid travel documents) from acquiring Indian citizenship, except for those who came into India on or before December 31, 2014, from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, or Pakistan and belong to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, or Christian religious communities.
On March 11, the Union government notified the rules under the Act and the portal for applications for citizenship became functional.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on March 11 stated that CAA will not be implemented in Kerala. "The LDF government has repeated several times that the Citizenship Amendment Act, which treats Muslim minorities as second-class citizens, will not be implemented in Kerala. We reiterate that position. Kerala will stand united in opposing this communal and divisive law," he said in a press note.
However, all the officials in-charge of implementing th eACt are Union government employees. With no officials who are bound to follow state government orders involved in its implementation, the state governments’ hands are tied in all matters concerning the implementation of the CAA. Even if there was a direct involvement of state government employees, the state does not have the power to ask them to not implement a law promulgated by the Union government. The only option before the state was to approach the court.
Kerala is the first state to approach the Supreme Court against the CAA. In 2020, the Kerala government filed an original suit, under Article 131 of the Constitution of India, in the Supreme Court challenging the CAA. Article 131 pertains to the right of the SC to settle disputes between the different units of the Indian federation, such as between the Centre and one or more states and between the states.
