Latest : Centre notifies rules for Citizenship (Amendment) Act
The law was passed in 2019 to fast-track the citizenship process for non-Muslims, who have entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh before December 31, 2014
The notification paved the way for granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants from the three neighboring countries. The law could not come into effect as rules were not notified until now.
Officials said the entire process for eligible people to submit applications for Indian citizenship under the law will be online.
The rules were framed months after Union home minister Amit Shah promised that this would be done before the 2024 national polls due this summer.
Parliament passed the CAA on December 11, 2019, and the law was notified within 24 hours. According to the parliamentary procedures, the rules for any legislation should have been framed within six months of presidential assent, or else an extension is needed from the Committees on Subordinate Legislation in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
The Union home ministry took extensions at regular intervals from the committees for framing the rules for eligible people to submit applications for Indian citizenship.
The promise of implementing the CAA was a major poll plank of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last Lok Sabha and the 2021 assembly polls in West Bengal.
The Union government’s move in October 2022 to empower collectors in two districts of Gujarat to grant citizenship certificates to non-Muslims from neighbouring countries under the Citizenship Act, 1955, prompted the Matuas of Bengal to renew their demand for the implementation of CAA. BJP leaders in Bengal said this was the first step towards implementing CAA.
The Matuas are part of the Dalit Namasudra community, which migrated from East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh) in 1947 and during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. They form a sizeable chunk of voters in the north and south Bengal districts bordering Bangladesh.
West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress has opposed the CAA calling it unconstitutional. The passage of CAA triggered protests with the opponents of the law insisting it was discriminatory and unconstitutional as it left out the Muslims and linked faith to citizenship in a secular country.
The Union government in October 2022 told the Supreme Court that CAA does not classify on the grounds of religion but distinguishes on that of “religious persecution”. It said the legislation seeks to undo the “historical injustices”.
The government emphasised India represents the “sole rational and logically feasible place to seek shelter” for those who have suffered atrocities on account of their religious identities in the three neighbouring countries.
It maintained the assertion that CAA is against any particular community is “erroneous, unfounded and designedly mischievous”. The government added that the CAA does not violate the cherished principle of secularism.
A clutch of over 200 connected petitions challenged the validity of the 2019 law on grounds of religious discrimination against Muslims and arbitrariness. The petitioners include the Indian Union of Muslim League, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, Lok Sabha member Asaduddin Owaisi, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Manoj Jha, TMC’s Mahua Moitra, and All Assam Students’ Union.
The government has maintained that there were sound reasons and a valid exercise of legislative powers to pick communities as well as choose only certain countries to bring within the fold of CAA. It added that the subject matter is outside the realm of judicial review.
Indigenous groups in the northeast have also opposed CAA saying it could lead to an influx of undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh. They organised demonstrations against the CAA across the region. Protests first erupted against the legislation in the region in December 2019 when five people were killed in police firing.
