NEWDELHI: The rules for the
Citizenship Amendment Act
, 2019, will be notified well before
Lok Sabha polls
are announced, enabling grant of citizenship to eligible migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan belonging to their six 'minority' communities, a senior government functionary said on Tuesday.
An online system for application, processing & grant of citizenship under
CAA
is being explored by home ministry, the functionary added.
CAA was enacted in December 2019 and came into force on January 10, 2020. However,
CAA rules
are yet to be notified, which is why the Act hasn't been implemented or process started for grant of citizenship to nationals from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Christian, Buddhist & Parsi communities, who had migrated to India before December 31, 2014.
Enactment of the law had sparked large-scale protests with the Muslim community and opposition parties dubbing it discriminatory and calling for its rollback. The delay in notification of rules, which the Centre attributed to the pandemic, had led many to wonder whether the government was still keen to follow through the law by operationalising it.
The government functionary, when asked whether CAA rules would be notified before the announcement of
Lok Sabha elections
, due in a few months, replied, "Yes, much before that."
The functionary further said, "The rules are ready and the online portal is also in place and the entire process will be online. The applicants will have to declare the year when they entered India without travel documents. No document will be sought from the applicants." Those who have already applied for citizenship may not be required to apply afresh.
The functionary added that eligible migrants may apply for citizenship under CAA via a dedicated portal of the home ministry, using their mobile phones from wherever they are residing. Though citizenship is a Union subject, the Centre, from time to time, delegates its powers to the state administrative machinery. An online system for applying, processing and grant of citizenship may not require the home ministry to delegate powers for grant of citizenship under CAA. However, the verification will still need to be done by the district administration concerned.
Officials said with the home ministry being the authority to which the application is made, it can keep following up with the district administration to expedite the verification. Online system will enable transparency on the point of delay in processing such citizenship requests.
On December 27, home minister Amit Shah had, while addressing a BJP meeting in Kolkata, said that no one could stop implementation of CAA as it was the law of the land and accused West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee of misleading people on the issue.
In November, junior home minister Ajay Mishra had declared that CAA rules would be in place by March 30, 2024.
According to the manual of parliamentary procedures, the rules for any legislation should be framed within six months of presidential assent or extension should be sought from the committees on subordinate legislation in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
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