The Supreme Court on Tuesday freshly delayed the 200 petitions that have been lingering since 2019 against the Citizenship Amendment Act . The CAA speeds up the refugees from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan to seek citizenship in India who entered the country before 31st December, 2014; however, excluding the Muslims out of this group.

Though various petitions have been filed since 2019 after passing of the act, the batch of 230 odd petitions remained frozen due to the outbreak of the Covid-19. The petitions claiming CAA to be unconstitutional and discriminatory were revived during the early September this year. Even though these were listed for September 12, they were somehow adjourned to September 19 and to October 31. The hearing of the petitions were adjourned to December 6 after a brief hearing of the modalities. Unfortunately the case didn’t even come up even as a customary reference due to the heavy workload before the Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice P.S. Narasimha.

Even though there were numerous cases and petitions on the list, the CAA case was listed as Item No. 45 in Court No. 1. It was announced by Justice Chandrachud that further hearings would be “spread over” January next year, due to the fact that the apex would remain for two-week winter vacation from December 19.

Justice Chandrachud after taking charge as CJI on November 9, had earlier announced that every Supreme Court bench would each day take up 10 transfer petitions and 10 bail applications, implementing the importance of bail to citizens’ right to life and liberty. Likewise on Tuesday, too, the CJI’s court had to deal with 10 petitions for transfer of matrimonial disputes from one state to another, along with 10 bail pleas.