CAA Rules silent on fate of rejected applicants
Applicants can be rejected by an empowered committee if their documents fail scrutiny
Adverse security clearance report also leads to rejection; review procedures absent in CAA Rules
Citizenship Act, 1955, had a provision to file review application before the Union govt.
As applications start coming in through the online citizenship portal of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), some potential applicants are worried about their fate if rejected. The law’s Rules, notified earlier this month, are silent regarding any review process for applications rejected by the empowered committees which have the final authority to accord citizenship under the Act.
Some potential applicants, including lakhs of people from the Matua community of West Bengal, entered the country decades ago and have been living as Indian citizens for many years. However, if their submitted documents now fail the scrutiny of the empowered committee, or if there is an adverse security clearance report about them, their applications for Indian citizenship under the CAA could be rejected.
‘Detention centres’
“If an application is rejected, people may end up in detention centres,” warned Mamata Bala Thakur, a Trinamool Congress parliamentarian who hails from a Hindu community that migrated from Bangladesh. The parent law, the Citizenship Act, 1955, says that the applicant may file a review application before the Central government within 30 days and “the decision of the Central government on such review shall be final.”
According to Aman Wadud, an Assambased lawyer who has worked extensively on citizenship cases in the State, “the review of the rejection is to be done by the same authority, the empowered committee (as per Section 15 A of the Act). In case the review is rejected, a writ petition can be filed before the High Court.”
‘Raises concern’
The ambiguity around the rejection of applications poses concerns, particularly for the Matua community in West Bengal, who stand to benefit from the CAA’s provision of fasttracked citizenship.
Lakhs of people belonging to the Scheduled Caste community migrated from Bangladesh (earlier East Pakistan) before and after the 1971 war with Pakistan. Many came without any papers but subsequently acquired all documents proving their Indian citizenship, such as passports and voter identity cards.
Ms. Thakur, a Matua leader nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the Trinamool Congress in February, said that the Rules were akin to making people slaves. “No one has applied for CAA here. Even Union Minister Santanu Thakur has not applied yet, his ancestors are from Bangladesh. If an application is rejected, people may end up in detention centres,” she said.
According to the Rules, the applicant must declare the country they belong to along with their “date of entry into India”, and upload on the citizenship portal any of the nine documents issued by government authorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh to support their claim.
This means that though the CAA was envisaged for undocumented migrants belonging to the six communities from the three neighbouring countries, the Rules indicate that documents are essential.