On July 26, the Ministry of Home Affairs sought six months to frame the rules for Citizen (Amendment) Act, 2019 or CAA. While replying to a question by Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi, Nityanand Rai, Minister of State, Home Affairs, said that MHA had asked committees on subordinate legislation in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha for time till January 9, 2022, to form the rules.
Citizenship (Amendment)Act, 2019 has been notified on 12.12.2019 & has come into force w.e.f. 10.01.2020. Committees on Subordinate Legislation, Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha have been requested to grant further extension of time up to 09.01.2022 to frame rules under CAA: MoS MHA in LS
— ANI (@ANI) July 27, 2021
Notably, CAA was notified on December 12, 2019, after President Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent to the legislation. It came into force on January 10, 2020. Under CAA, persecuted minorities comprising Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and Christian communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who arrived will be able to avail citizenship in India.
CAA is applicable for the people who arrived in India till December 31, 2014, because of the religious persecution in the mentioned countries. They would be treated as illegal immigrants, and the government would grant them Indian citizenship according to the regulations mentioned in the law. As per the act, if a person from the mentioned faiths from the three countries in the list does not have proof of parents’ birth, they could apply for citizenship after six years of residency in India.
CAA and Delhi Riots
Opposition parties and several groups criticized the amendments in the Citizenship Act. They tried to propagate that CAA, combined with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), aims to target minorities living in India, especially the Muslim community. Since its enactment in December 2019, there were large scale protests across the country. Sit-in protests at Shaheen Bagh attracted a lot of attention, especially because of the anti-India speeches given by the speakers at the site.
In the background of these protests, there was an alleged larger conspiracy to cause unrest in the Indian state that resulted in riots in February 2020. As a result, several arrests were made by investigation agencies, including that of Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Tahir Hussain and several others. As per reports, Police registered over 700 cases connected to the riots and detained or arrested 3,400 people by the end of March 2020. A detailed report on the anti-Hindu Delhi Riots by OpIndia can be read here.
