A Bill that is causing worry

A Bill that is causing worry

News

1. Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, is not tabled in upcoming parliament monsoon session.

Important Facts

2. The delay is due to holding of wider consultation by Joint Parliamentary Committee before reaching to a conclusion.

3. About the bill

• The Bill was introduced in July 2016, and referred to a parliamentary committee.
• The Bill’s objective is to remove the tag of ‘illegal migrants’ from members of minority communities (Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Christians and Parsis) from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who have entered the country without legal documentation or whose documents have expired
• The amendment will not cover Muslims, who form the majority in these three countries.

4. The main idea behind the bill is to make these migrants eligible to apply for Indian Citizenship by Naturalization

• Naturalisation requires applicants to have stayed in the country for 11 years of the previous 14 years, and throughout the last 12 months.
• The proposed amendment reduces the residency requirement to six years, besides the last 12 months.

5. Opposition to the Bill is strong in Assam, where there is fear that non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh will become Indian citizens.

6. There is also an apprehension that this would be in conflict with the ongoing exercise to update the National Register of Citizens in Assam, for which the cut-off date is March 24, 1971.

7. Another feature of the proposed amendment is that it enables cancellation of the registration of any Overseas Citizen of India cardholder for violation of Indian law.