CAA narrowly tailored for specific reasons: MHA

New Delhi, April 26

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in its annual report for 2020-21, has termed the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) as “a limited and narrowly-tailored legislation, which seeks to provide relaxation to specific communities from specified countries with a clear cut-off date, taking a compassionate and ameliorative view”.

Sympathetic view

Law seeks to provide relaxation to specific communities from specified countries, taking a compassionate view. MHA

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The law was enacted in 2019, but is yet to be implemented. It aims at granting citizenship to members of the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities, who faced persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan and had come to India on or before December 31, 2014. Several parts of the country had witnessed protests against the law, leading to around 100 deaths.

The protesters claimed the law violated the Constitution as it aimed at granting Indian citizenship on the basis of religion, barring Muslims.

In its report, the MHA asserts the CAA does not apply to Indian citizens and therefore, does not in any way take away or abridge their rights and goes on to add that the present legal process of acquiring Indian citizenship by any foreigner of any category as provided in the Citizenship Act, 1955, is very much operational.

Noting that the CAA does not amend or alter this legal position in any manner whatsoever, it said, therefore, legal migrants of any religion from any country would continue to get Indian citizenship once they fulfilled the eligibility conditions.

“The Constitution has provided special provisions under the Sixth Schedule to grant protection to the tribal and indigenous people of the northeastern region,” it said, adding the CAA had excluded such areas and those covered by the Inner Line Permit system under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873. “Hence, the CAA doesn’t affect the protection granted by the Constitution to indigenous population of northeastern states,” it said.