Context: Twenty Sikhs from Afghanistan have been granted Indian citizenship in the past week in New Delhi. Some of these Afghan Sikhs arrived in India as far back as 1997 and have been residing in the country on a long-term visa. 

• Additionally, there are approximately 400 Afghan Sikhs whose applications for Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Act, 1955, have been pending since 2010. 

• Many of these individuals fled Afghanistan in 1992 following the collapse of the Leftist government.

• Apart from above, a Hindu man from Bangladesh, living in Silchar, Assam since 1988, became the first in northeast India to receive citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) amends the 1955 Citizenship Act. It was passed on December 11, 2019 and received presidential assent the following day. 

Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019

• It amended the Citizenship Amendment Act, 1955, making key modifications to facilitate citizenship to undocumented migrants belonging to 6 non-Muslim groups — Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who entered India on or earlier than December 31, 2014.

• It reduced the period to qualify for citizenship from the existing requirement of continuous stay of 11 years to continuous stay of five years.

• However, Pakistani Hindus have been eligible for citizenship under Section five and Section 6 (1) of the Citizenship Act, 1955. The CAA handiest helped rapid tune the application manner. 

• The Rules provide the very last authority to accord citizenship to an empowered committee headed via the Director, Census Operations, at the same time as the scrutiny of applications filed on-line at the portal was accomplished by a district degree committee (DLC) headed by means of Department of Post officials.

• On successful verification of documents, the DLCs administered the oath of allegiance to the applicants. 

Challenges with the Act

• The right to equality: The challenge to the CAA rests on the ground that it violates Article 14 of the Constitution, which says that “the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India”.

• Secularism: There is also the bigger difficulty of whether making religion a ground for eligibility for citizenship violates secularism, that is a basic feature of the Constitution.

• Section 6A of The Citizenship Act, 1955 and Assam: Section 6A was introduced in the Citizenship Act after the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985 which determines who’s a foreigner inside the nation of Assam and units March 24, 1971 as a cut off date which contradicts the reduce off date given inside the CAA 2019. 

Citizenship

• Citizenship is listed inside the Union List underneath the Constitution and therefore is under the one-of-a-kind jurisdiction of Parliament.

• The Constitution does not outline the term ‘citizen’ but details of various classes of individuals who are entitled to citizenship are given in Part II (Articles 5 to 11).

• The provisions relating to citizenship have been dealt in Part II of the Constitution of India under Articles 5 to 11. However, these provisions do not contain either any permanent or any elaborate provisions towards citizenship.

• It only identifies the persons who became citizens of India at its commencement (i.e., on January 26, 1950).

Acquisition of Indian Citizenship

• The Citizenship Act of 1955 prescribes five methods of obtaining citizenship:

1. Citizenship conferred by birth

2. Citizenship by descent

3. Citizenship by registration

4. Naturalization leads to citizenship.

5. Territorial incorporation (by the Government of India)

• Under The Indian Citizenship Act, 1955, Persons of Indian Origin aren’t allowed twin citizenship. If a person has ever held an Indian passport and has obtained the passport of some other country, they’re required to surrender their Indian passport.

Termination of Indian Citizenship

1. Renunciation: Any Indian citizen who is also a country wide of any other country who renounces his Indian citizenship within the prescribed way thru a statement ceases to be an Indian citizen.

2. Termination: An Indian citizen’s citizenship can be revoked if he or she knowingly or voluntarily adopts the citizenship of any other country.

3. Deprivation: In some cases, the Indian government may additionally deprive a person of his citizenship. However, this does not apply to all residents. Conditions for deprivation are:

• Obtained the citizenship by using fraud.

• Citizens have shown disloyalty to the Constitution of India.

• Citizens have unlawfully traded or communicated all through the times of battle.

• Within 5 years of naturalization, the stated citizen is imprisoned for a term of  years.

• Citizen has been broadly speaking resident out of India for a period of 7 years.