Rights or wrong?: On U.N. rights body move against CAA

The application on behalf of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, seeking to be heard as amicus curiae in the pending litigation in the Supreme Court against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, is undoubtedly an unusual step. As expected, the government sees it as unwarranted interference. It does appear that the move is unnecessary as the global human rights perspective that High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet Jeria hopes to present is most likely to be raised by some of the petitioners themselves. After all, most of the 140-odd petitions argue that the CAA fails to extend the equal protection of law to all immigrants in the country. But, to be fair, the High Commissioner is not seeking to be a petitioner. On the contrary, she is offering the undoubted expertise that the premier U.N. body possesses in aid