New Delhi:The All Assam Students' Union (AASU) on Monday reiterated that the people of Northeast will never accept the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 even as the Supreme Court has adjourned the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of CAA to December 6.
Taking up as many as 232 petitions altogether, the apex court has also appointed two nodal counsels for the compilation of all relevant documents related to the case before the next date of hearing.
Talking to ETV Bharat here, AASU chief advisor Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharya said that Assam and the entire northeast have been facing the issue of external aggression and internal disturbance for the last several decades.
Northeast will never accept CAA: AASU "By implementing CAA, the central government wants to dump the illegal influx into the northeast. The CAA goes against the spirit of the Assam Accord. Northeast can not be a dumping ground for illegal foreigners," said Bhattacharya.
It is worth mentioning that in 1985, the then government at the Centre, State, and AASU signed Assam Accord to bring an end to end years-long Assam agitations spearheaded by AASU against illegal foreigners. "We have full faith in the Supreme Court. We believe that justice will prevail with the withdrawal of CAA," said Bhattacharya.
"If CAA is bad and it's exempted from Inner Line Permit and 6 scheduled areas, how can it be good for other parts of Northeast," he said. Of the total 232 petitions, 53 have been filed from the Northeast and out of which 50 have been filed from Assam and three from Tripura.
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The nodal counsels appointed by the Supreme Court have been advised to consider designating some other matters as lead matters keeping in view the grounds of geographical and religious classifications among other things. The petitions raising issues relating to Assam and Northeast could be separately classified, the court observed.
Bhattacharya said that the hearing on CAA will continue together but there should be a separate time for Assam, Tripura, and Northeast. "As the situation in the Northeastern States is different from other parts of the country, the Supreme Court has upheld its earlier directives of Northeast cases separately," Bhattacharya informed.
He said that the Government of India filed petitions and they have segregated the matter into two parts. "As the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is the lead petitioner, under them all the petitioners of the country are tagged together. As far as Northeast is concerned, AASU being the lead petitioner, all other petitions of the region have been tagged together," said Bhattacharya.
Ever since the government okayed the CAA, northeastern States have been witnessing a vociferous protest spearheaded by AASU and North East Students Union (NESO). Both AASU and NESO have been demanding to repeal of the CAA from the entire Northeastern States. With CAA, the government aims to give citizenship to the religious minority community coming from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan following religious persecution.
