New Delhi: Challenging the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Communist Party of India (CPI) MP Binoy Viswam on Thursday approached the Supreme Court demanding scrapping of the Act.
“There is already a petition against CAA. Today I have impleaded the petition,” said Viswam to ETV Bharat. Ever since the Home Ministry notified the rules for the implementation of CAA, as many as four petitions have been filed in the apex court against the contentious law which aims to give Indian citizenship to the persecuted people from six communities including Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Jain, Buddhist and Christian coming to India on or before December 31, 2014, from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Viswam said that the implementation of this "chasmic law" on the eve of the election is part of BJPs’ wider agenda to "instigate tensions and fissures between different communities in India". “The divisive and discriminatory law is against the values enshrined in the Constitution and has been opposed by every section of society. Making religion the determinant for granting citizenship is a complete negation of the spirit of our Constitution,” said Viswam.
The Union government notified the rules for the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 and subsequently started the online process to give Indian citizenship. “CAA will be combated legally and politically. Provisions of the CAA are prima-facie against the secular tenets of our Constitution and we have approached the Supreme Court requesting to halt the implementation of the dreaded law, which goes against the inclusive fabric of Indian society”, Viswam said.
He said that the CPI has been steadfastly opposing CAA from the initial period itself. During the discussion in Parliament on the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) 2019, Viswam criticized the proposed amendment to citizenship laws in the country and said that the Bill intends to fulfil Guru Golwalkar’s fascist aspiration of treating Muslims as second-class citizens in India.
In 2019, he was detained by the then-BJP government of Karnataka in Mangalore along with other CPI activists for protesting against the divisive CAA. In the past 48 hours, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), All Assam Students Union (AASU) and CLP leader in the Assam Assembly Debabrata Saikia filed four different petitions against CAA.
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