The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a response from Centre and Assam government on a plea challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi issued a notice to the Centre and the Assam government and asked them to file a response within two weeks.
Nagarikatwa Aain Songsudhan Birodhi Mancha, a forum against Citizenship Act Amendment Bill, has sought to declare the Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2015 and the Foreigners (Amendment) Act as “discriminatory, arbitrary and illegal”.
The petition opposed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill on the ground that it had introduced religion as a new principle into the citizenship law and termed it as “communally motivated humanitarianism”.
