The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear the Centre’s plea to transfer every petition challenging the validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act from various High Courts to the top court. The court issued a notice in the matter, and posted the matter for hearing on January 22, reported Bar and Bench.

The same day, the court will also hear a batch of 60 petitions challenging various aspects of the law that relaxed citizenship criteria for migrants from six non-Muslim communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Last month, the court had issued a notice to the government, asking it to respond to the petitions.

On Wednesday, the top court said it was of the prima facie view that High Courts should look into the petitions, and it could look into them if there was any conflict of opinion. However, the Centre argued that there would be a problem as different High Courts might have conflicting views and lawyers would be moving to different states to attend the proceedings. The court said lawyers moving to different states for attending the hearings was not its priority.

Last month, protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and alleged police brutality erupted across India. At least 26 people lost their lives during the demonstrations.