Home Ministry issues notification, CAA comes into effect

New Delhi: The Citizenship (Amendment) Act officially came into operation on Friday. However, the Centre is yet to frame rules for the Act. A home ministry notification on Friday said the provisions of the Act will come into force from January 10. “In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of the section 1 of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, the central government, hereby, appoints the 10th day of January, 2020, as the date on which the provisions of the said Act shall come into force,” the MHA notification said. Parliament had passed the bill on December 11.

CAA intends to grant Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who entered India by December 31, 2014, Indian citizenship on application and scrutiny. Such persons will have to make a self-declaration of undergoing religious persecution and produce legally acceptable documents to prove that they had arrived in India by the cutoff date.

There have been widespread protests across the country over the Act. In the northeast, the agitators say that they fear that it would lead to influx of migrants from Bangladesh, despite the bill providing for provisions to protect the states through exemptions such as Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, Scheduled VI areas that offer protection to tribals and inner line permit.