Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, while responding to party colleague Kapil Sibal's remark on Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA, has said that "If something is on the statute book, you have to obey law, else there are consequences". Mr Sibal on Saturday said that a state cannot say ''no'' to a law passed by parliament.
"If the Supreme Court doesn't interfere, it''ll remain on the statute book. If something is on the statute book, you have to obey the law, else there are consequences," Mr Khurshid told ANI on Saturday.
"It is a matter where the state governments have a very serious difference of opinion with the centre as far as this (CAA) law is concerned. So, we would wait for the final pronouncement made by the top court. Ultimately, the top will decide and till then everything said, done, not done is provisional and tentative."
Mr Sibal, who was participating in the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) at Kozhikode on Saturday, had said that "a state cannot say no to a law cleared by the parliament".
"When it's about national politics, I think we all must stand together because this is national legislation. So, we should not be scoring political points. You must know that if the CAA is passed, no state can say ''I will not implement it''. That is not possible. That is unconstitutional. You can oppose it. You can pass a resolution in the Assembly and ask the Central government to withdraw it," he said.
"But constitutionally to say that I will not implement it is going to be problematic and it is going to create more difficulty. So, what we need to do is politically get together, fight this battle and let the Congress party nationally lead the charge," he added.
The CAA, for the first time, makes religion test for citizenship in India. While the government says it will grant citizenship to the non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, who came to India on or before December 31, 2014, critics have called it "discriminatory" and "unconstitutional".
