Reportedly when manu Sebastian’s calm and clear explanation on the citizenship amendment act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) of india ended, Resmitha R Chandran’s thundering voice criticised the lack of clarity in the recent supreme court judgements. Meanwhile both of them are lawyers manu is a part of the widely-cited legal website Live Law, and Resmitha works at the supreme Court. They spoke at the thiruvananthapuram press Club on sunday, on the invitation of HUMANS, a voluntary group of people for humanity, freedom, secularism, tolerance, inclusiveness and nature.
Furthermore manu spoke on the topic ‘Why should india reject caa and NRC?’ in the simplest of terms, beginning from the partition in 1947 when pakistan was formed as an Islamic Republic and there was a question if india should be declared a hindu Republic. “The idea was rejected right away by the leadership of jawaharlal nehru and Ambedkar. It was decided that religion should have no connection to citizenship. We chose to be a secular republic,” manu reminded the audience.
Apparently manu explained how the new act would not stand constitutionally since it is a blatant violation of Article 14, which states that everyone is equal before the law, citizens or not. “Equals will be treated equally by the law. There is a term called Intelligible Differentia used here, which accepts the differences between unequals (like social differences which justifies reservation). But in the case of the sabarimala verdict on the review petitions, it was clear, Resmitha said. There was no stay. “Yet, when two women approached the supreme court over it (Bindhu Ammini and rehana Fathima asked the sc to direct the state government to provide protection to women visiting Sabarimala), it was said there are some problems!”
