CAA is here: Modi government notifies rules ahead of Lok Sabha elections 2024

With the CAA rules being issued, the Modi government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who came to India by 31 December 2014. These include Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians.

Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) will be notifying today, the Rules under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA-2019). These rules, called the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024 will enable the persons eligible under CAA-2019 to apply for grant of Indian citizenship. (1/2)

— Spokesperson, Ministry of Home Affairs (@PIBHomeAffairs) March 11, 2024

The Ministry of Home Affairs has prepared a portal for the applicants’ convenience. The entire process will be online. The applicants will have to declare the year they entered India without travel documents.

No document will be sought from the applicants, an official said.

These rules, called the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024, will enable those eligible under CAA-2019 to apply for a grant of Indian citizenship. The new law has introduced religion as the sixth method to acquire Indian citizenship.

Non-Muslim people specified under this law as illegal migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan will not be treated as illegal migrants. That paves the way for their eligibility to seek Indian citizenship under this law.

The application process will be digital, and an online system has been set up for it. Prospective citizenship seekers will only need to disclose the year of their entry into India. They need not furnish any travel documents, and they will not be asked for any other papers.

A person granted the certificate of registration or certificate of naturalisation shall be deemed a citizen of India from the date of his or her entry into the country.

However, certain conditions apply. One qualification for refugees is that the person must have resided in India or been in central government service for the last 12 months and at least 11 years of the preceding 14 years. However, for the specified class of illegal migrants, the number of years of residency has been relaxed to five years.

Significantly, any proceeding pending against a person in respect of illegal migration or citizenship on and from the date of commencement of CAA 2019 “shall stand abated from the date of entry into India”.

The rules and the law for illegal migrants are not applicable in the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura, as included in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. The states regulated by the “Inner Line” permit under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulations 1873 are also exceptions.

Under the 1955 Act, foreigners may register as Overseas Citizens of India if they are of Indian origin or the spouse of a person of Indian origin. This will entitle them to benefits such as the right to travel to India and to work and study in the country. The Act has been amended to allow cancellation of OCI registration if the person has violated any law notified by the central government.

The CAA was passed in December 2019 and subsequently got the president’s assent, but there were protests in several parts of the country against it. Over a hundred people lost their lives during the anti-CAA protests or police action.

The law could not be enacted as rules were yet to be notified for its implementation.

Also Read: LDF government sticking to its stand against CAA implementation: Kerala CM

Sought extension since 2020

According to the Manual on Parliamentary Work, the rules for any legislation should be framed within six months of presidential assent, or the government must seek an extension from the Committees on Subordinate Legislation in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Since 2020, the Home Ministry has been requesting extensions at regular intervals from the parliamentary committee that is framing the rules.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has prepared a portal for the applicants’ convenience. The entire process will be online. The applicants will have to declare the year they entered India without travel documents.

No document will be sought from the applicants, an official said.

On 27 December 2023, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that no one can stop the implementation of the CAA as it is the law of the land and accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of misleading people on the issue.

Addressing a party meeting in Kolkata, Shah said it is the BJP’s commitment to implement the CAA.

The TMC, led by Mamata Banerjee, has been opposing the CAA since the beginning.

Also Read: DMK government will never allow CAA implementation in TN: CM MK Stalin

BJP’s poll promise

The promise of implementing the controversial CAA was a major poll plank of the BJP in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in West Bengal.

The saffron party’s leaders consider it a plausible factor in the rise of the BJP in Bengal.

Meanwhile, in the last two years, over 30 District Magistrates and Home Secretaries of nine states have been given powers to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan under the Citizenship Act, 1955.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs’ annual report for 2021-22, from 1 April 2021 to 31 December 2021, 1,414 foreigners belonging to these non-Muslim minority communities from the three countries were given Indian citizenship by registration or naturalization under the Citizenship Act, 1955.

The nine states where Indian citizenship by registration or naturalisation is given under the Citizenship Act of 1955 to non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra.

Interestingly, authorities of none of the districts of Assam and West Bengal, where the issue is politically very sensitive, have been given the powers so far.

(With PTI inputs)