Modi Government Implements Citizenship Amendment Act Rules

The rules for implementing of the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) will be notified today, the Ministry of Home Affairs has announced. These rules, called the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024 will enable the persons eligible under CAA-2019 to apply for grant of Indian citizenship. The applications will be submitted in a completely online mode for which a web portal has been provided, the MHA posts on X. The CAA will facilitate the granting of citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Notably, the implementation of the CAA was an integral part of the BJP’s 2019 Lok Sabha Election manifesto.

The Modi government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan — Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians — who had come to India till December 31, 2014.

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.

Does the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill go against Article 14 of the Constitution?

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 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.