A group of lawyers from the Supreme Court held a rally here on Tuesday against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), demanding that the government scrap the controversial laws. The rally that began from the Supreme Court ended at Jantar Mantar.

“Everything shouldn’t be always law centric. The government should also gauge the public mood and I think, as per the public mood, the government should immediately scrap this law,” said Nandita Rao, a Supreme Court lawyer.

“It is our duty as lawyers to tell or inform people about the impact of citizenship. We the lawyers have come on the streets to tell people that their fears are correct. CAA and NRC is an attack on the citizenship of every Indian,” she added.

“Lawyers have a duty and obligation to defend the Constitution, rule of law and democracy,” said another group of lawyers who held up ‘Save Constitution’ placards.

Hundreds of lawyers gathered at the Supreme Court lawn and read out the Preamble of the Constitution. Later, the participants also distributed the preamble of the Constitution among the public at Jantar Mantar.

“Being a law professional, I can say that this law is full of flaws and discriminatory. And in a country like ours, there should be no place for any discrimination,” said lawyer Sanjib Bhardwaj. Vijay Jain asked, “Should a democratic nation decide to grant citizenship only on the basis of the religion.”

CAA was passed in parliament last December and since then it has seen protests from different sections. On Tuesday, after almost a month, the lawyers hit the road. They also condemned the police action on the students of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

“We are here to show our solidarity with students, especially those who are taking up the issues of CAA, NRC and NPR. We want to show our moral support to students because they are our future,” said advocate MP Raju.

Other than the lawyers, many women students from JNU also protested at Jantar Mantar against the law. They opposed the CAA, NRC and NPR by carrying placards and chanted slogans of “Azaadi”, “Inquilab Zindabad”, “Rollback the CAB”, “SHAME” and “Narendra Modi and Amit Shah haye haye”.