The ministry of home affairs on Monday notified the Citizenship Amendment Rules. The rules will now facilitate minorities facing persecution on religious grounds in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan to obtain Indian citizenship.
The rule enables granting of citizenship to citizens of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Christian, Buddhist & Parsi communities, who had migrated to India on (or)before December 31, 2014.
An online system for application, processing & grant of citizenship under CAA is being explored by home ministry.
The CAA was enacted in December 2019 and came into force on January 10, 2020. However, the Act could not be implemented as the rules were not notified. Enactment of the law drew criticism from a certain section and opposition parties, who dubbed the Act as discriminatory and sought for its rollback.Indian citizenship will also be granted to the immigrant who has been living in India for at least five of the last 14 years or has lived in the country for the past one year. Under the act, for the specified class of illegal migrants, the government has relaxed the number of years of residency to five years, which marks a significant reduction from the previous requirement of 11 years for citizenship by naturalization.
After the government made the announcement, the reactions started to pour in from the opposition leaders, who accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre of resorting to ‘deviation’ and ‘publicity’ ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.