The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard a clutch of petitions filed by several people, including Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and Tripura's Pradyot Kishore Deb Barman, challenging the constitutional validity of the newly passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) today.

A Bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justice BR Gavai and Justice Surya Kant refused to stay the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. The Supreme Court said it would hear the pleas in January. The apex court also issued a notice to the Centre on the batch of pleas challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

Ever since the bill got the President's nod, protests have erupted across several areas of India, including Delhi and Assam. Protesters are demanding scrapping of the amended citizenship law. During protests against the law in Northeast Delhi's Seelampur area on Tuesday, some miscreants set vehicles on fire, pelted stones at police personnel and damaged public properties. Police also resorted to baton charge and fired tear gas shells to disperse the protesters, though the situation has been brought under control, say police.

Union Minister Amit Shah has reiterated that there will be no rollback of the Citizenship Amendment Act. Officials on Wednesday said prohibitory orders have been imposed in northeast Delhi as a precautionary measure. Under the orders, assembly of four or more people is prohibited.

According to locals, there was underlying tension in the area after protests turned violent, which saw agitators pelting stones and vandalising and torching vehicles on Tuesday. Police were patrolling the area to ensure situation remains peaceful. Six arrests have been made so far, police said.

Protests swept campuses across the country against the police crackdown at Jamia Millia Islamia after Sunday evening's violence over the new citizenship law. Students at the Aligarh Muslim University clashed with the police after their solidarity march was stopped. By midnight, Hyderabad's Maulana Azad Urdu University and the Banaras Hindu University raised their voices. In Delhi, hundreds gathered outside the Police Headquarters in response to a call from the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University. The trouble started Sunday evening after a protest march by the Jamia students ended in a pitched battle with the police, vandalism and torching of vehicles. The police, which used batons and teargas to contain the violence, later barged into the university and detained around 100 students. All the detained students were released around 3:30 am.

Here is your ten-point cheat sheet on this big story:

1. Around midnight, students at Hyderabad's Maulana Azad Urdu University and the Banaras Hindu University held protest marches.At Kolkata's Jadavpur University, the students held a midnight march through the neighbourhood. Students of the Maulana Azad Urdu University also demanded that their exams be postponed. 

2. Demanding immediate release of detained students, hundreds gathered outside the Delhi Police Headquarters close to midnight, defying the freezing cold. The arterial road outside the headquarters was completely blocked by protesters and the police was standing ready with tear gas and water cannons in case the situation goes out of hand. The Delhi Police, around 3:30 am, said all the detained students have been released, following which the protesting crowd outside the Police Headquarters dispersed.

3. The escalating protests had hit the prestigious Aligarh Muslim University first, with the students, bent on holding a solidarity march, clashing with the police. Ten policemen and around 30 students were injured and the police demanded that the students vacate the hostels. Internet has been blocked in the city and the university closed till January 5.

4. The protest march had started from the Jamia Millia Islamia on Sunday evening and was expected to end at Jantar Mantar, the designated area for protests in the national capital. But violence started soon after. In full view of television cameras, the mob clashed with the police and set fire to buses and two-wheelers. In addition to students, several policemen including senior officers were injured. One of them is in the Intensive Care Unit with severe head injuries.

5. Later in the evening, the police detained around 100 students. "The police have entered the campus by force, no permission was given. Our staff and students are being beaten up and forced to leave the campus," said Waseem Ahmed Khan, Chief Proctor of the university.

6. Senior police officer Chinmaya Biswal told NDTV that the police entered the university only after the violent mob went inside and started throwing stones. "We were checking from where these violent activities were taking place," he said.

7. Jamia students distanced themselves from the violence and some officers of the Delhi police privately admitted that local thugs were responsible for it. In a statement, the students said, "We have time and again maintained our protests are peaceful and non-violent." The violence "by certain elements" was an attempt to vilify and discredit genuine protests, they said.

8. The trouble hit the metro services, with five stations on the city's Magenta Line - where the university is located - being closed down. Road traffic was also diverted from the area. In a Hindi tweet, Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia declared that all schools in the south east district areas including Jamia, Okhla, New Friends Colony and Madanpur Khadar, will remain closed on Monday.

9. In a tweet, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has condemned the violence. "Spoke to Hon'ble LG and urged him to take all steps to restore normalcy and peace. We are also doing everything possible at our end. Real miscreants who caused violence shud be identified and punished," a second tweet read.

10. Violence had scarred parts of the country since the citizenship law -- meant to facilitate grant of citizenship to religious minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh living in India -- was passed. Much of the violence had taken place in the northeastern states, Bengal and Delhi. Earlier on Sunday, at an election rally in Jharkhand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the people of Assam for "staying away from violence".

A review petition filed by 2012 Delhi gang-rape convict Akshay Kumar Singh will be heard by the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The request will be heard at 2 pm in an open court.

One of the four men convicted in the gang-rape, torture and killing of a young girl in Delhi seven years ago, Akshay Singh had filed a petition in the top court this week to appeal against his death sentence.

While the act of filing a last-minute review petition - the four are expected to be hanged soon - is not unusual, the petition made some rather bizarre claims, including citing Hindu religious texts and the Delhi pollution crisis as reasons why the death sentence should not be carried out.

In a 14-page Criminal Review Petition, filed by advocates on his behalf, Akshay Singh said: "Why death penalty when age is reducing... it is mentioned in our Ved, Purans and Upanishads that... people lived the life of thousand years... now it is Kalyug, in this era, age of human beings have reduced much. It has now come to 50-60 years... this is almost a true analysis... when a person faces stark realities of life, then he is no better than a dead body".

The petition went on to say the air quality in the National Capital Region was "burst and like a gas chamber" and that the poor quality of drinking water - "full of poison". "Life is going short to short, then why death penalty?" the petition asked.

Finally, the petition quoted Mahatma Gandhi's famous advice to people faced with a difficult question - "Recall the face of the poorest and most helpless man...".

Akshay Singh filed his review petition less than a week after the Delhi government and the centre rejected a mercy request by Vinay Sharma, another of the rapists. The courts have already rejected petitions from Vinay Kumar, Mukesh Singh and Pawan Gupta.

Once the relevant legal appeals are exhausted all four will be hanged at Delhi's Tihar Jail, where preparations are already being made.

In December 2012, Akshay Singh and five others, including a juvenile male, gang-raped and tortured a 23-year-old paramedic student inside a moving bus in south Delhi. She was violated with an iron rod when she protested. Her friend was beaten severely and both were thrown out of the bus at a secluded spot; the young girl was naked and bleeding. The woman, who came to be known as Nirbhaya or "fearless", died 13 days after the assault, leaving the nation shocked and angry.

Violent protests have continued across parts of the North East for a third straight day over the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that was tabled in the Rajya Sabha this afternoon. In response to requests from district officials, the Indian Army has deployed two columns to the Kanchanpur and Manu areas of Tripura while a third is on standby in Assam's Bongaigaon. One column consists of at least 70 soldiers and is led by one or two officers. According to a statement by Army spokesperson Colonel Aman Anand, Field Commanders and the Army HQ are monitoring the situation closely.

Additional deployments - of a Police QRT (Quick Response Team) in Assam's Dibrugarh district and up to 5,000 paramilitary personnel across the North East - have also been confirmed, as state and central governments brace for backlash against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill from student-led civil society organisations.

The North East has seen sustained and widespread protests against the Citizenship Bill; agitations were held earlier this year as well - in the run-up to the 2019 general election. Protesters, who include political leaders allied with the ruling BJP, have expressed concerns that refugees allowed by the bill could endanger identity and livelihood of indigenous people.

In Assam, protests erupted across different parts of the BJP-ruled state with the security forces resorting to lathi-charges in Dispur, Guwahati, Dibrugarh and Jorhat. At least 25 protesters, including women and some journalists and television crews, were injured. Earlier the influential North East Students' Organisations (NESO), backed by political parties, pledged to observe a 11-hour shutdown in the North East.

The Tripura government on Tuesday blocked mobile internet and SMS services across the state for 48 hours because of the protests. A two-month-old baby died while being taken to a hospital in Sepahijala as protests blocked traffic, police said.

The communications clampdown came into effect even as many demonstrators raised slogans against the centre in Agartala, demanding the state be kept out of the purview of the bill. Earlier, protesters set fire to a market with shops mostly owned by non-tribals in the northeast state's Dhalai district.

In view of the agitations, examinations in schools, colleges and universities in Assam, Tripura, Mizoram and Meghalaya have all been postponed.

Last week Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who led the centre's push on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha on Monday and did so again in the Rajya Sabha today, held extensive meetings with stakeholders in the North East, saying appropriate exceptions had been made and urging protesters to stand down.

Following from those meetings the draft version of the Citizenship Bill excludes tribal areas of Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram, as well as the area under "The Inner Line" permit system.

The bill sailed through the Lok Sabha on Monday - by 334 votes to 104.

Petition Filed in Supreme Court Against Pension To Politicians

Now a leader of the leaders has filed a PIL in the Supreme Court...

2018 Improvement Act:

MPs should not get pension because politics is not a job or employment, but a free service. - Politics is an election under the Public Representation Act, there is no retirement, but they can be re-elected in the same situation again. (Currently they get pension, after 5 years of service).

One more disorder in this is that if a person has been a councilor first, then becomes a legislator and then becomes an MP, then he gets not one but three pensions.

This is a great betrayal with the citizens of the country who immediately have to ACT to stop this...

With the Central Pay Commission, salary allowance of MPs is being revised ....This should be brought under the income tax....

At present, MPs increase their salaries and allowances arbitrarily by voting for themselves and at that time all the parties are united.

MPs health care system should be discarded.. and health care like public health of India should take care of them like any other citizen.. Presently their treatment often is done abroad.. if they have to get it done abroad, they should get it done at their own expense.

All concessions to them, such as, electricity, water and phone bill should end. (They not only get many such concessions but they also increase them regularly) -

Criminals should be prevented from contesting elections, suspicious persons with punitive records, criminal charges and determination, past or present should be banned from the Parliament..

Financial losses caused by them, due to politicians in the office, should also be recovered from them, their nominees, properties - MPs should also follow the same rules applicable to common citizens.

No deduction on LPG gas subsidy by the citizens... unless the subsidies available to MPs and MLAs, & Other subsidies, including subsidized food in the Parliament canteen, are not withdrawn.

Serving in the Parliament is an honor, not a lucrative career for looting.

Free rail and airplane travel should stop.

Why does the common man have to bear their fun?

Share & Support this Cause..

You are requested to spread this message to all the people in your contact and in turn ask them to forward further also.

Every citizen should raise voice in India.