The state government termed the CAA rules as, arbitrary and unconstitutional. “The said classifications based on religion and country are unconstitutional, discriminatory, arbitrary, unreasonable, and contravened the principles of secularism,” it said.
Questioning the move of the Center for doing it in such an hurry, Kerala government said, “The fact that the defendant (Union) itself has no urgency in the implementation of the 2019 Act is a sufficient cause for staying the 2024 rules.”
The Kerala government, which had earlier filed an original suit against the validity of the CAA, said the Amendment Act and Rules and Orders are bereft of any standard principle or norm in discriminating migrants from other countries such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bhutan, which are sharing international borders with India and to which and from which there has been trans-border migration.
“Classifications based on religion and country are manifestly discriminatory. It is trite and settled law that a legislation discriminating on the basis of an intrinsic and core trait of an individual cannot form a reasonable classification based on an intelligible differentia,” the plea said.
