Policy Center for the New South unconstitutional because it violates both Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, as well as Article 15 concerning the prohibition of discrimination on ground of religion. Therefore, the differential treatment of Indian residents must meet the requirements of equality before the law and equal protection of law under Articles 14 and 21 of the Indian Constitution. Indeed, the Constitution extends these rights to all persons within the Indian territory without regard to citizenship. Equal protection and the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion do not demand exact treatment, but they do demand that any differential treatment be reasonable and justified. The classification made in law should be rational and the differentiation must correspond with its proclaimed purpose. Faizan Mustapha, Vice Chancellor of Nalsar University of Law and Jurist on Constitutional Law, said in an interview with Huffington Post: “I agree with the honourable Home Minister that Article 14 permits classification. However, the classification has to satisfy three tests: reasonability, rational object and non-arbitrariness4”. From the perspective of India’s jurisprudence, the Delhi high court’s judgment in Naz Foundation vs. Government of NCT of Delhi in 2009 referred to the “scope, content and meaning of Article 14 as elaborated in what it called ‘a catena of decisions5”. These decisions, the judgment stated, lay down that while Article 14 “forbids class legislation”, it allows “reasonable” classification for the purpose of legislation. Apart from the test of reasonableness and therefore “permissible” classification, the Naz Foundation judgment recommended a further test of reasonableness, requiring that the objective for such classification in the law must also be subjected to judicial scrutiny: “If the objective be illogical, unfair and unjust, necessarily the classification will have to be held as unreasonable6”. Citing the judgment in the Maneka Gandhi case (1978)7, the Naz Foundation judgment augmented protection against state arbitrariness by stressing that the law should “eschew arbitrariness in any form’” since arbitrariness was antithetical to equality, both according to political logic and constitutional law. Thus, while providing a test 4. Nikhila Henry. CAB : Even Hindus Must Fear the BJP’s Citizenship Law, A Legal Expert Explains Why. December 12, 2019. https://www. huffingtonpost.in/entry/citizenship-amendment-bill-why-hindus-mustalso-fear-it_in_5df1b3b5e4b06a50a2e9e06f Policy Brief for reasonableness, the Naz Foundation judgment went beyond the procedural test of correspondence between an intelligible differentia and the objectives of law, by subjecting the objectives themselves to scrutiny. The judgment provided a substantive test of protection against the exercise of arbitrary power by the state, to say that any violation of Article 14 is in fact a violation of equality provisions in the Constitution. The restraint on state arbitrariness, according to the judgment, was to come from constitutional morality: it was the responsibility of the state to protect. While protection against the arbitrary power of the state is drawn directly from Article 14, the tests of equality and dignity can be traced back to the code of constitutional morality, which can be found running through the Constitution generally, but more specifically in the preamble and chapters III, IV and IV-A of the Constitution. These chapters relate to fundamental rights, the directive principles of state policy and fundamental duties. Nevertheless, this does not mean that there are no constitutional standards governing the purpose of policies. One such standard is that no legislation can be “manifestly arbitrary”. The Supreme Court has consistently read this requirement under equal protection to mean that no statute can be “capricious, irrational or without an adequate determining principle8”. Indian equality jurisprudence demands that every law, including its purpose, must not be whimsical or capricious, but should be based on a factually tenable principle and rationale. On January 23, 2020, Supreme Court hinted that it might refer the CAA to a larger Constitution bench, but that for now, it has only asked the government to reply to pending petitions. Most importantly, the CAA seems incompatible with the ideals of Indian secularism9. Even though the word “secular” was introduced in India in 1976, the Supreme Court in the 1973 Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala judgment10 had observed that secularism is part of the basic structure of the Constitution. The basic structure arguably consists of the following features: (1) supremacy of the Constitution; (2) republican and 8. Justice K.S.Puttaswamy (Retd.) vs Union of India, 2018 (3) SCC 797. Shayara Bano and Ors. vs Union of India, AIR 2017 SC 4609. and Navtej Singh vs Union of India and Ors., (2019) 1 SCC(LS) 443. 6. Ibid 9. Nikhila Henry. CAB : Even Hindus Must Fear the BJP’s Citizenship Law, A Legal Expert Explains Why. December 12, 2019. https://www. huffingtonpost.in/entry/citizenship-amendment-bill-why-hindus-mustalso-fear-it_in_5df1b3b5e4b06a50a2e9e06f 7. Mankeka Ghandi vs Union of India. Supreme Court of India. January 25, 1978. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1766147/ 10. Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala. Supreme Court of India. April 24, 1973. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/257876/ 5. Naz Foundation vs. Government of NCT of New Delhi. New Delhi High Court. July 2, 2009. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/100472805/ www.policycenter.ma 3