New Delhi: The Narendra Modi-government on Monday notified implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) rules.
“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,” the Ministry of Home Aaffairs said, in a post on X.
The new law, which introduces religion as the sixth criteria to acquire citizenship in India, would benefit persecuted non-Muslim migrants – Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhist, Parsis, Christians – from three of its neighbouring countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. It would cover those who had migrated to India before December 31, 2014. The CAA will also be helpful for refugees from these neighbouring countries, who don’t have documents.
Until now, citizenship was regulated by the Citizenship Act, 1955, which specified five criteria for acquiring citizenship in India– by birth in India, by descent, through registration, by naturalisation (extended residence in India), and by incorporation of territory into India.
The notification comes a month after Union Home Minister Amit Shah had stressed that CAA would be implemented before the Lok Sabha elections this year. “CAA will come into effect before the election and nobody should be confused about this,” Shah had said at an event in Delhi.
The Citizenship Amendment Act was passed by Parliament in December 2019. It was also an integral part of BJP’s 2019 manifesto.
Reacting to the announcement, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh tweeted, “It has taken four years and three months for the Modi Government to notify the rules for the Citizenship Amendment Act that was passed by the Parliament in December 2019. The Prime Minister claims that his Government works in a business-like and time-bound manner. The time taken to notify the rules for the CAA is yet another demonstration of the Prime Minister’s blatant lies.”
