On Monday,11 march of 2024 the Union Ministry of Home Affairs announced the regulations governing the implementation of the contentious CAA(Citizenship Amendment Act) 2019.
In accordance with the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2024, those who meet the eligibility requirements for Indian citizenship under the CAA may apply for citizenship via specific mechanisms outlined in the rules.
The CAA was approved by the Parliament in 2019 and aims to expedite the process of obtaining Indian citizenship for non-Muslim immigrants who arrived in India before to December 31, 2014, after fleeing persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. However, because of the widespread opposition to the bill throughout the nation, its implementation was postponed. The government’s plan to implement the CAA and create a National Register of Citizens (NRC) concurrently only served to intensify the protests.
Critics of the legislation argue that the country’s secular nature is compromised by associating Indian citizenship with religion, and they object to the exclusion of refugees from the benefit of the CAA on the basis of religion. The Supreme Court has received more than a hundred writ petitions contesting the law’s constitutional validity. Although consenting to hear the case, the Supreme Court decided not to halt the Act’s implementation.
In response to criticism, the Government counter-affidated, defending the Act and asserting that it does not impact any Indian citizen’s citizenship and that a legislation cannot be invalidated for simply leaving out a group while providing benefits.
The proviso added in Section 2(1)(b) states that immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who are of the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, Jain, and Christian religions can become citizens of India through naturalization provided they can prove they have been residents for five years as opposed to the current eleven years.