Home Ministry asks 5 states to accept minorities from 3 nations as citizens of India

The application for registration as citizen of India or grant of certificate of naturalisation as citizen of India under the said rules shall be made by the applicant online

Ground Report | New Delhi: The Ministry of Home Affairs on Friday has asked migrant minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh residing in 13 districts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Punjab to apply for citizen of India. Home Ministry has given these migrants the right to grant Indian citizenship to the Home Secretaries of Punjab, Haryana. Apart from this, DM has also been given this right in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab.

The notification issued on Friday is under section 16 of the Citizenship Act 1955, which enables the central government to delegate any power (other than sections 10 and 18) to an officer or authority. Under Section 16 of the Citizenship Act, 1955, the government has given them the right to grant citizenship. Under section five of the same Act, the Central Government orders registration for citizenship of India. Under this, all non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will get citizenship.

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District Collectors at Morbi, Rajkot, Patan and Vadodara in Gujarat; Drugs and Baloda Bazar in Chhattisgarh; Jalore, Udaipur, Pali, Barmer and Sirohi in Rajasthan; According to the notification, Faridabad in Haryana and Jalandhar in Punjab have been empowered to complete the process of verification of applications for citizenship.

The procedure is described as follows:

• The application for registration as citizen of India or grant of certificate of naturalisation as citizen of India under the said rules shall be made by the applicant online;
• 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 Collector or the Secretary, as the case may be, makes such inquiry as he considers necessary for ascertaining the suitability of the applicant and for that purpose forwards the application online to such agencies for verification and comments as may be required for completing such an inquiry and the instructions issued by the Central Government from time to time in this regard shall be strictly complied with by the State or Union territory and District concerned.
• The comments of the agencies referred to in clause (C) are uploaded online by such agencies and accessible to the Collector or the Secretary, as the case may be, and the Central Government ;
• 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; a
• The Collector and the Secretary shall maintain an online as well as physical register, in accordance with the said rules, containing the details of the person so registered or naturalised as a citizen of India and furnish a copy thereof to the Central Government within seven days of such registration or naturalisation.

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Significantly, the notification was issued under the existing provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955, as the rules of the Citizenship Amendment Act have not yet been framed. In December 2020, Home Minister Amit Shah stated that regulations could not be made due to the coronavirus epidemic and that the process would be considered after "vaccination has begun and the corona cycle has broken".

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