CAA: India’s SC to hear all petitions on Oct 31

India's Supreme Court fixed the hearing in 220 petitions challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of 2019 on October 31 and said it will refer the case to a three-judge Bench. The petitions came up before a Bench of Chief Justice of India U U Lalit and S Ravindra Bhat yesterday after a hiatus of many months. The hearing of the case was interrupted by the pandemic. Chief Justice Lalit asked the parties, including the Centre, to draw a "road map" highlighting the issues involved in the case, their division into various segments and the formulation of questions of law. The CAA fast-tracks the citizenship-by-naturalisation process for "illegal migrants" from six religious communities, other than Muslims, who have fled persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.