“The CAA, which has set new guidelines for granting citizenship, is a violation of the fundamental right of equality as mentioned in the Constitution”
New Delhi: On Tuesday Kerala became the first state to challenge the Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) after the Pinarayi Vijayan government filed a suit in the Supreme Court, seeking a direction to declare the controversial legislation unconstitutional.
In December the Kerala assembly had passed a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act, asking the Central government to cancel the controversial legislation that has triggered nationwide protests. The resolution was supported by all the MLAs except BJP’s O Rajagopal.
The resolution was moved by Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan, who has accused the BJP government of executing the RSS agenda of dividing the country into communal lines bypassing the Act.
“I want to make it clear that no detention centres will be created in Kerala. Kerala has a long history of secularism, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, everyone reached our state. Christians and Muslims reached Kerala in the very early. Our tradition is of inclusiveness. Our assembly needs to keep the tradition alive,” he had said.
The implementation of CAA is a “violation of the fundamental right of equality”, the Kerala CM Pinaryi Vijayan said. “The CAA 2019 passed by both houses of the Parliament has created concern among many communities, there has also been a widespread protest in the state against the same. In Kerala, there has been a peaceful and untied protest in general against the CAA.
“The CAA, which has set new guidelines for granting citizenship, is a violation of the fundamental right of equality as mentioned in the Constitution”.
The day after the Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha on December 11, Vijayan had hit out at the Narendra Modi-led government and said the “unconstitutional Bill” will have no place in Kerala and we will not implement it.
While questioning the people to oppose the Bill, Vijayan had claimed that the proposed law is a rejection of secularism and the BJP had made it clear that its main political plank is communalism.
However, after the Kerala Assembly passed the resolution, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan said the move had no constitutional or legal validity as citizenship was a central subject.
“This resolution has no legal or constitutional validity because citizenship is exclusively a central subject, this actually means nothing,” said Khan.
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