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The Union home ministry is yet to frame rules to implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 (CAA). The law which sparked nationwide protests was cleared by Parliament on December 11.
Senior ministry officials said on condition of anonymity that defining a process to establish the identity of those that have faced religious persecution is proving to be “difficult”. “We are looking into the issue,” said a senior home ministry official. The law fast-tracks citizenship to persecuted religious minorities, except Muslims, from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
The official, however, added that the ministry is not waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on various pleas against CAA. Several petitions were filed challenging the constitutional validity of the law. On December 18, the SC, while refusing to stay the implementation of CAA, agreed to examine the law’s constitutional validity. The apex court is scheduled to hear the petitions on January 22. “There is no direction from the court holding back the government from framing the CAA rules,” the official said.
Interestingly, the Research and Analysis Wing told the Joint Parliamentary Committee, which examined the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 : “Our only concern has been that the agencies who are inimical to us should not have a legal framework within which they can exploit our situation and infiltrate their own people into our own country…” RAW and Intelligence Bureau (IB) testified before the JPC in September and October 2016, March 2017 and October 2018.
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