4 years after its passage, Centre notifies Citizenship Amendment Act

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaMarch 11, 2024

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) rules four years after its passage in the Parliament in December 2019.

The CAA seeks to grant Indian citizenship to refugees who had sought shelter in India before December 31, 2014, due to religious persecution in three neighbouring countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Under the CAA Indian citizenship will be granted to six minority communities – Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians.

The CAA will remove legal barriers to rehabilitation and citizenship, and give a dignified life to refugees who have suffered for decades. 

Under the Act, the citizenship rights will protect their cultural, linguistic, and social identity to ensure economic, commercial, free movement, and property purchase rights. An official release of the MHA said: “This is the law to give citizenship, CAA will not take away the citizenship of any Indian citizen, irrespective of religion. This Act is only for those who have suffered persecution for years and have no other shelter in the world except India.”

“The Constitution of India grants us the right to provide religious persecuted refugees with fundamental rights and to grant citizenship from a humanitarian perspective,” the release said.

“The implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act was delayed due to the Covid pandemic. But now we are implementing it,” it said.

The law has generated criticism for being against minorities. But Shah in his Rajya Sabha speech had said the Bill was not against any minority in India and the rights of each India Citizen would be equally protected. The home minister said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government was committed to protecting the rights of each citizen of the country.

 “The only religion that the Modi government follows is the Constitution of India. We are not here only to run the government but to solve the genuine problems of the common man,” he said.

The Modi government today notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024.

These rules will now enable minorities persecuted on religious grounds in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to acquire citizenship in our nation.

With this notification PM Shri @narendramodi Ji has…

— Amit Shah (Modi Ka Parivar) (@AmitShah) March 11, 2024

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