Citizenship Amendment Act CAA notes for Airforce Group Discussion

Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) Notes for Airforce Phase2 Group Discussion.

•This Amendment Act(2019)seeks to amend the Citizenship Act,1955.

•It amends the definition of an illegal immigrant for six religious communities including Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Buddhist, Jains and Christian from three countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, who entered India territory on or before December 31, 2014, will not be considered illegal immigrants.

•It also exempts these communities from the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920.

•This Amendment allows a person to apply for citizenship by registration or naturalisation if the person meets specific qualifications.

The Argument against CAA:

-Violation of Article 14 of the Constitution and the principle of secularism enshrined in the preamble of the Constitution.

-India has several other refugees that include Tamils from Sri Lanka and Hindu Rohingya from Myanmar. They are not covered under the Act.

-It will be hard for the authorities to differentiate between illegal migrants and those persecuted.

-The Bill throws the light on the religious oppression that has happened and is happening in these three countries and thus, may worsen our bilateral ties with them.

-It provides wide discretion to the government to cancel OCI registrations for both major offences like murder, as well as minor offences like parking in a no-parking zone or jumping a red light.

The Argument in Favour of CAA:

•Under Article 246 of the Constitution, Parliament has got the exclusive power to make laws with respect to any matters listed in the list one in the Seventh Schedule, in that, item 17 is to deals with citizenship and naturalisation of aliens. 

•Therefore, only Parliament has got sovereign powers to legislate on citizenship.

•Article 14, says equality before the law and equal protection before the law, but the Supreme Court in more than 20 judgments also called for a reasonable classification of groups who form a class by themselves then that legislation will be valid. 

•Here a persecuted, victimised group based on the faith of six communities from the three countries Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, which are declared Islamic countries, form that reasonable classification

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