The story so far: Four years after the Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) notified the rules to implement the law on March 11.
The contentious law fast-tracks citizenship to undocumented immigrants from six non-Muslim communities — Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi, Christian and Jain — from the neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The rules state that the applicants must provide six types of documents and specify “date of entry” in India to be eligible for citizenship.
Although the Act was passed on December 11, 2019, and received assent from the President on December 12 of the same year, it could not be implemented since the rules were not framed. The MHA had earlier notified that the Act would come into force from January 10, 2020, but later sought at least 10 extensions from the Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate Legislation to frame the rules.
