SC keeps pending petitions challenging notification on entry of minorities

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday kept in abeyance a challenge to two notifications on the Passport Act and the Foreigners Act that permitted all religious minorities, except Muslims, to stay in India even if they had entered without valid documents.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Ashok Bhushan and Sanjay Kishan Kaul kept the petition pending observing that a Bill to amend the Citizenship (Amendment) Act was pending before Rajya Sabha after being passed by the Lok Sabha.

The petitioner has contended that the government could not have issued the two notifications in 2015 without amending the law, which is only now being done.

Keeping the petition pending, the court pointed to propriety, as a Bill to amend the Acts was pending before Parliament.

[source_without_link]IANS[/source_without_link]