CAA Rules Notified, Security Beefed Up

CAA Implemented: The Narendra Modi-led Centre on Monday notified the implementation of the rules for the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) across India. This will pave the way for the persecuted to find citizenship in India. The big announcement comes within a week of Union Home Minister Amit Shah at Republic Summit 2024 saying that the CAA would be implemented before the Lok Sabha elections this year. “CAA will be rolled out before the Lok Sabha elections. This is the law of the Nation and nobody can stop it”, Shah had stated while talking to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami.

About CAA?

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 come into effect so far as rules have to be notified for its implementation.  According to the Manual on Parliamentary Work, the rules for any legislation should be framed within six months of presidential assent or the government has to seek an extension from the Committees on Subordinate Legislation in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. 

Since 2020, the Home Ministry has been taking extensions at regular intervals from the parliamentary committee for framing the rules. 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. 

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.

MHA Readies Portal For Convenience of Applicants

The Ministry of Home Affairs has readied a portal for the convenience of the applicants as the entire process will be online. The applicants will have to declare the year when they entered India without travel documents. No document will be sought from the applicants, an official said.

According to the annual report of the Ministry of Home Affairs for 2021-22, from April 1, 2021, to December 31, 2021, a total of 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.