Citizenship Amendment Act notified at midnight, receives President’s assent

The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 received President Ram Nath Kovind’s assent on December 12 and has been notified in the Gazette.

The Act got the President’s assent one day after being passed in the Upper House of the Parliament on December 11 and three days after being cleared by the Lok Sabha on December 9.

The Bill was first introduced back in 2016 and took three years to be passed by the Lok Sabha. However, the efforts of the Centre to pass the proposed legislation in the Upper House were stymied, and Bill lapsed.

The newer version of the Bill, however, passed muster in both Houses of Parliament and finally became law after being notified in the Gazette on December 12 at around midnight.

The Act seeks to add a proviso to the definition of “illegal migrant” under Section 2 of the Citizenship Act. The proposed proviso states thus:

“Provided that persons belonging to minority communities, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who have been exempted by the Central Government by or under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 3 of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946 or any order made thereunder, shall not be treated as illegal migrants for the purposes of that Act.”

In effect, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan will not be treated as illegal migrants under the Act.

Another change is that the Act seeks to reduce the number of years required for citizenship by naturalisation for the above-mentioned communities. The current requisite period of residence in India for eleven years will be cut down to five years.

The Act, as it is now, has already been challenged before the Supreme Court on the grounds that it is violative of Articles 14, 15, and 21. This first challenge to the Act was made while the President’s assent was yet to be given and the legislative process, thus, was yet to be complete.

The passage of the Bill in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha was met with widespread protests across the country with the situation in Assam being particularly severe leading to the shutdown of internet services and the imposition of a curfew.

[Gazette notification]