CAA Rules open the door to dual citizenship by not requiring renunciation of previous citizenship, anti-CAA petitioners tell SC

Petitioners argue against Citizenship Amendment Act Rules allowing dual citizenship, citing violations of Citizenship Act and Constitution.

The Rules of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act do not require foreign applicants to effectively renounce the citizenship of their native country, creating a possibility for dual citizenship which is directly violative of the Citizenship Act, petitioners argued in the Supreme Court.

Written submissions filed by the petitioners ahead of the April 9 hearing of their plea to stay the CAA Rules, which were notified on March 11, said that Section 9 of the Citizenship Act of 1955 and Article 9 of the Constitution both clearly and explicitly prohibit the acquisition of dual citizenship.

The CAA aims to grant fast-tracked Indian citizenship to “illegal migrants” belonging to persecuted members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, or Pakistan who had entered India on or before December 31, 2014.

But the petitioners, led by the Indian Union Muslim League, represented by senior advocate Kapil Sibal and advocate Haris Beeran, said that the 2024 Rules are rife with defects, and have even overlooked the fact that “effective renunciation of citizenship was an important prerequisite for granting citizenship in cases where the nationality of another country is clearly attributable to the applicant”.

Allowing dual citizenship, one of them being Indian, makes the Rules both “ultra vires and manifestly arbitrary”, they submitted.

The petitioners noted that a presumption of religious persecution is inherent in the CAA. The Union government views the law as a succour for refugees who fled persecution from the target countries with state religions.

But only a “selected group” of such migrants are eligible for the benefits of CAA, the petitioners said. Excluded refugee groups continue to remain illegal migrants, barred from seeking Indian citizenship under any mode.