Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Thursday said the act of the state government to move the Supreme Court against the Citizenship Amendment Act, without informing him was "improper".
Khan said protocol demanded that he should have been informed first.
"Even the rules of the Assembly provide that the legislature shall not discuss any subject which does not come under their constitutional jurisdiction. I have no problem if they go to the Supreme Court. Even there I feel, without informing the constitutional head of the state, what they have done is improper," Khan said.
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"Yet I do not find anything wrong with it. I do not find any fault with their decision to go to Supreme Court, because Constitution gives that authority to the Supreme Court. But the protocol demanded that they should have informed me first," the Governor added.
The Kerala government had on January 13 filed a petition in the apex court, saying the CAA was contradictory to constitutional ethos.
In the suit, the LDF government has sought to declare that the CAA 2019 is violative of Article 14 (Equality before law), 21 (Protection of life and personal liberty) and 25 (Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion) of the Constitution as well as violative of the basic principle of secularism enshrined in it.
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The suit states: "The Impugned Amendment Act and Rules and Orders cover certain religious minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan and overlook other reportedly persecuted religious minorities/ minority sects therein such as Ahmaddiyas, Shias and Hazaras. Ahmaddiyas are reportedly subjected to persecution in Pakistan and Bangladesh."
On December 31, 2019, the Kerala Assembly passed a resolution demanding the scrapping of the CAA, amid raging countrywide protests against the legislation.
(With PTI inputs)
