What is Citizenship Amendment Act and Why is NRC a matter of concern.


The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance won the election with a thumping majority held on May, 2019 this year. In the same year the central government has introduced several bills such as Transgender persons (protection of rights) bill and Jammu and Kashmir Re-organisation bill in the parliament. In this same series the government introduced Citizenship Amendment bill and it became an act on Dec 12, 2019.
Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016

Earlier in 2016, the BJP government introduced the same bill in Lok Sabha. However due to lack of majority in Rajya Sabha the bill got lapsed. But over these years several regional parties like ADMK, TRS, YSRC, BJD and Janata Dal started to give their support to NDA. Since then, BJP government has managed to pass all their long-pending bills in the Rajya Sabha.


Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019

The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 aims not to treat any person belonging to Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Parsi or Sikh community from three neighbouring Islam states Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan on or before the 31st of December, 2014 as illegal immigrants and also the aggregate period of residence or service in government is reduced to 5 years from 11 years originally. However, the Act had not included the Muslims from those neighbouring countries and this has lead to severe criticism. But actually, the real reason for the strong protest is implementation of another draconian National Register of Citizens.

                                               

National Register of Citizens

The Citizenship Amendment Act, 1955 mandates compulsory register of every citizen of India and issue national identity card by the central government. Except Assam, it is proposed to come into effect in 2021. The central government may require the citizens to prove citizenship by submitting any of the documents prescribed. However, the document doesn’t include Aadhar, Voter ID or Passport.


Why is NRC a matter of concern?

The NRC has been so far implemented only in Assam. In 2014, certain organisation from Assam filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court (SC) seeking deportation of illegal immigrants who entered Assam from Bangladesh on or before 1971. Following this SC has ordered the central government to update NRC in accordance with citizenship statute. Over 19 lakh applicants name was found missing in the final list released by the government in 2015. After several protest, the central government has agreed to update the list. Still, after the second update, four lakhs people name including the family members of the former president of India, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and a retired Army soldier, etc. were missing in the final list. Several persons including members from BJP have challenged the updated final list before the Supreme Court. Several people blamed that implementing authorities were not cautious and that has resulted in a lot of confusion and uncertainty.
 The government has now proposed to implement the NRC across the country. Many persons have challenged the constitutional validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act and the implementation of NRC on the ground of discrimination in the Supreme Court. It can’t be denied that the implementation of NRC has several challenges.  Any procedure that ought to be implemented should be without any room for injustice, unambiguous and should be clear, just and fair to the people.



(Views expressed in this article is personal)


For any queries regarding the article contact

K.Vasanth (Final year L.L.B Hons, School of Excellence in Law, Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar law university)

Mail: vasanthtnau@gmail.com
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Comments

K.G.Raam said…
Congrats for ur writing 👏👏👏but the matter is 'Sub-Judice' so i can't comment on the content...best wishes
December 28, 2019 at 12:40 PM
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