The notification of the rules providing mechanisms to implement the much-hyped Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on March 11 by the Union government after a delay of more than four years and ahead of Lok Sabha elections has reignited the debate over this controversial legislation.

The CAA aims to fast-track Indian citizenship for minorities fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who entered India before 31 December 2014. The CAA, a key promise in the BJP’s 2019 election manifesto, was passed by parliament on 9 December 2019 but could not be enforced until now due to nationwide massive protests that continued until March 2020, when they abruptly ended in the wake of the Covid19 pandemic related nationwide lockdown.

Though the original Citizenship Act of 1955 has been previously amended five times in 1986, 1992, 2003, 2005, and 2015, these amendments never faced opposition of such scale and magnitude from across the country as the 2019 amendment. The CAA conundrum raises many questions of constitutional and political significance, like whether the CAA violates the principle of equality enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution by failing the tests of reasonable classification and non-arbitrariness? Whether the CAA discriminates against Muslims? Whether the CAA violates the basic feature of secularism by granting citizenship on the ground of religion?

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Is there anything serious in the CAA that Indian Muslims should be worried about? Whether the CAA will fuel anti-Muslim sentiments in the country and lead to ‘othering’ of Muslims further? The foremost argument against the CAA is that it is discriminatory and manifestly arbitrary and thus violates Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees all ‘persons’ (not only citizens) equality before the law and equal protection of the law because it expressly excludes Muslims on the basis of religion. Article 14 requires that all persons similarly circumstanced should be treated alike.

In R.K. Garg vs. Union of India (1981), the SC held that Article 14 prohibits Parliament from........

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