Central government announces implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act 4 years after Bill was passed

Implementation rules for the controversial CAA notified by PM Modi, granting citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from neighboring countries.

The rules for implementation of the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) have been announced on March 11 by the Modi government, according to government sources. 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.

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.