Kerala first state to challenge Citizenship Amendment Bill in Supreme Court

Kerala : The Kerala Government has challenged the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, making the state first one to do so. The Supreme Court is already hearing over 60 petitions against the religion-based law.

Challenging the bill in the apex court, Kerala's Left-led government called CAA a violation of several articles of the constitution including the right to equality and says the law goes against the basic principle of secularism in the constitution.

The Kerala government has also challenged the validity of changes made in 2015 to the Passport law and the Foreigners (Amendment) Order, regularising the stay of non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who had entered India before 2015.

With the CAA, the path for non-Muslims from the neighbouring nations has become easy to get Indian citizenship. Critics fear that the CAA, along with a proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), will discriminate against Muslims.

The Kerala petition says the CAA violates Articles 14, 21 and 25 of the constitution.

While Article 14 is about the right to equality, Article 21 says "no person will be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to a procedure established by law". Under Article 25, "all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience."

The Supreme Court will hear Kerala's petition on January 22.