CAA guidelines on maintain, Centre opens comparable citizenship window in 5 states

With the Centre but to border guidelines underneath the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, it issued a gazette notification Friday granting powers underneath current guidelines to authorities in 13 districts of Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab to simply accept, confirm and approve citizenship functions from members of minority communities hailing from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
The notification lists Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians because the communities that will likely be coated, and states that the functions should be submitted on-line.
The order has been issued underneath the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship Rules, 2009 and never underneath the Citizenship
Amendment Act, 2019 since its guidelines haven’t but been framed, sources within the Ministry of Home Affairs mentioned. The same notification had been issued in 2018 as effectively for different districts in a number of states.
“In exercise of the powers conferred by section 16 of the Citizenship Act, 1955 (57 of 1955), the Central Government hereby directs that powers exercisable by it, for registration as a citizen of India under section 5, or for grant of certificate of naturalisation under section 6, of the Citizenship Act, 1955, in respect of any person belonging to minority community in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians… shall also be exercisable by the Collector, within whose jurisdiction the applicant is ordinarily resident,” the notification mentioned.
The districts listed within the notification are: Morbi, Rajkot, Patan and Vadodara (Gujarat); Durg and Balodabazar (Chhattisgarh); Jalore, Udaipur, Pali, Barmer and Sirohi (Rajasthan); Faridabad (Haryana); and, Jalandhar (Punjab).
It additionally granted comparable powers to the Home Secretaries of Haryana and Punjab, aside from Faridabad and Jalandhar.
“The verification of the application is done simultaneously by the Collector or the Secretary, as the case may be, at the district level and the state level and the application and the reports thereon shall be made accessible simultaneously to the Central Government on online portal,” the order mentioned.
“The Collector or the Secretary, as the case may be, on being satisfied with the suitability of the applicant, grants him the citizenship of India by registration or naturalisation and issues a certificate of registration or naturalisation, as the case may be, duly printed from online portal and signed by the Collector or the Secretary, as the case may be, in the Form as prescribed in the said rules,” the notification mentioned.

It has requested the Collector and Secretary to take care of a web based in addition to bodily register, containing particulars of the individual registered or naturalised as a citizen of India and furnish a duplicate to the Central Government inside seven days of registration or naturalisation.
In 2018, the Government had granted comparable powers to Collectors and Home Secretaries of states akin to Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi with regard to sure districts.
In December 2019, the Parliament amended the Citizenship Act granting citizenship to unlawful immigrants belonging to Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Parsi, Christian and Buddhist communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan — however not Muslims. The laws was handed amid sturdy criticism from the Opposition, which known as it discriminatory, and triggered large nationwide protests.

The MHA has been deliberating on framing the CAA guidelines for over a 12 months with none headway, sources mentioned.
“The rules are essential for implementation of the Act. The rules are supposed to specify the kind of documents that would be needed to prove whether the applicant came from these countries to India before the cut off date (December 31, 2014) or not. Most illegal immigrants have entered the country without any travel documents,” sources mentioned.