After a five-year hiatus, the Supreme Court will hear from May 5 a batch of over 240 petitions and cross-petitions challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019.
The Act seeks to give fast-tracked citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis who faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, but excludes Muslims.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi said the petitioners would be heard on May 5 and for half a day on May 6. Thereafter, the respondents — the Centre and some states — will be heard on May 6 and 7. Another hearing will be conducted on May 12 for taking up rejoinders and other miscellaneous issues.
The bench said it would hear separately the 2019 Act's applicability to Assam and Tripura, but did not specify any date.
Most of the petitions were filed in 2020 during the pandemic. They had come up on multiple occasions before different benches but were not taken up for substantive hearings.
The last time the matter came up was on March 19, 2024, when the top court refused to stay the implementation of the Act and associated rules that kicked in on March 11, 2024. The court had assured a batch of over 200 petitioners that the Centre may not be able to grant citizenship as necessary “infrastructure” is yet to be created.
“But the infrastructure of the state... committee, etc, is not even in place,” then Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud had told senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Indira Jaising, appearing for the Indian Union Muslim League and several others.
The legislation had drawn flak from civil liberties activists and the Opposition on the ground that it facilitated the illegal entry of foreigners into the country, besides excluding Muslims from the grant of citizenship.
Assam plea binned
The bench on Thursday refused to entertain a plea for the conduct of an SIR in Assam as sought by some tribal groups after the Election Commission stated that the final rolls had already been published on February 10, 2026.
Senior advocate D. Seshadri Naidu, representing the EC, told the bench that the final rolls had already been declared for Assam after several earlier revisions.