CAA Explainer with Top Jurist Harish Salve | EXCLUSIVE

New Delhi: Former Solicitor General, Senior Advocate in Supreme Court and King's Counsel Harish Salve in an exclusive interaction with Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami explained the nuances of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).  “Every country has to balance its priorities. India is doing its bit to help distressed people in our neighbourhood,” Salve said in an exclusive interaction with Arnab. 

“Let me deal with it at two levels: Discrimination in a larger political sense and discrimination in what I call, in a narrower constitutional sense," Salve said while explaining the new citizenship rules.  

The senior advocate said, "I would not use the word discrimination because every country has to balance priorities. We would like to help our neighbours and people in distress. We are struggling to come out of poverty and are heading towards becoming a developing country. How much we can reach out to people from other distressed parts of the world and how many tears can we wipe, is a matter of balancing priorities. That's an argument of policies. Some can say India should have an open-door policy for its neighbours. Some from the Western world or more developed countries can say that infliction starts with open-door (policy); that's a policy argument."  

He added, “Discrimination is the word, which reigns false in this. There are international conventions for the grant of asylum. We are not a party to it. Even if the world has international conventions, rules are to be followed. That's a political argument.”

CAA Explainer with Harish Salve | WATCH FULL VIDEO BELOW 

Earlier in the day, while speaking to ANI, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had affirmed that the CAA will never be taken back. "This is our sovereign right to ensure Indian citizenship in our country, we will never compromise on it and CAA will never be taken back," Amit Shah said.

While several persecuted minorities are celebrating the government’s decision, opposition leaders from the INDI alliance have seen red over the implementation of the landmark law.