Can't deny CAA, says Kapil Sibal

Thiruvananthapuram: In a statement which could cause huge embarrassment to the ruling CPM-led Left Democratic Front government in Kerala and the state unit of Congress which are leading a major agitation against Citizenship Amendment Act, former Union minister Kapil Sibal on Saturday said that no state can deny implementation of an Act passed by the Parliament.

Sibal, who was delivering a lecture at Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode, said no state can say that it cannot implement CAA. Such a stand would be “unconstitutional.” “You can pass a resolution in the Assembly, ask the Centre to withdraw it. But to say constitutionally that it won’t implement it is problematic and going to create further difficulties,” he said.

The senior Congress leader said that the NRC is based on NPR which has to be implemented by the local registrar. Local registrars will be appointed at the level of community in which enumerations are to take place. These enumerators have to be officers working under the state government. So when state says that it will not implement NPR, it means that the officers will be asked not to cooperate with the Centre.

“I am not sure if this is practically possible or not. Constitutionally, it would be difficult for the state governments to say that they will not follow a law passed by Parliament,” he said.

He hailed the nation-wide agitation against the CAA as a battle between “leader” and the “people of India”. “Thank god it was the “students, poor, and middle-class” of the country that are leading the movement and not any political party, he added.

The veteran Congress leader said that the agitation was making impact globally and within the country because people have realised that this was not politics but this was real.

Sibal’s statement is likely to cause embarrassment to the LDF government which earlier this week filed suit in the Supreme Court against the CAA, seeking to declare the Act “violative of the principles of equality, freedom and secularism enshrined in the Constitution”.

Kerala government was the first to challenge the Act in the apex court and also first in passing a resolution in the Assembly against the Act. Punjab passed a similar resolution on Friday.

Besides Kerala, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Maharashtra have also raised their voices against implementation of CAA, NRC and NPR.