Priest can give CAA eligibility certificate, says govt. helpline
It is a mandatory certificate to be submitted along with other documents by the applicants on the portal; as per the rules, the certificate can be issued by a ‘locally reputed community institution’
local priest may issue an “eligibility certificate” under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 to validate the religion of an applicant, according to a response received by The Hindu through the Union Home Ministry’s helpline on CAA.
The certificate, a mandatory document, is to be enclosed along with an affidavit and other documents that the applicants are to upload on the CAA portal. “The reasons for which applicant wishes to acquire Indian citizenship” must also be stated.
On March 11, the Ministry notified the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024, enabling the implementation of the CAA. On March
A21, it launched the helpline number 1032 “for assistance and information” on the CAA, so that “applicants can make free call from anywhere in India from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m”.
The certificate is to be issued by a “locally reputed community institution”. When The Hindu called the helpline on March 26 to seek information on its format, the person attending the call said, “It can be on a blank sheet of paper or on a judicial paper with a stamp value of ₹10.” Asked who can issue the certificate, The Hindu was told that “any local pujari can be asked to issue it”.
When the rules were notified, the Ministry did not specify the authority or the body that can issue the certificate. A source said on Wednesday: “Any institution which has the trust of people can issue the certificate. The final decision to grant citizenship will be taken by the empowered committee, the local institution is only recommending that they belong to a particular faith.”
The form says that the person issuing the certificate will have to specify their name and confirm that the applicant belongs to one of the six communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan and are known to them. They must certify that “to the best of my knowledge and belief, he/she belongs to Hindu/ Sikh/ Buddhist/ Jain/Parsi/Christian community and continues to be a member of the above mentioned community”.