Centre Gets More Time To Frame Rules For Citizenship Amendment Act

The Union home ministry has been granted yet another extension by the Parliamentary Committees on Subordinate Legislation in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha to frame the rules of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, sources said on Tuesday.

While the permission has been granted from the Rajya Sabha till December 31, 2022, the Lok Sabha has granted the time till January 9, 2023.

This is the seventh extension given to the home ministry to frame the rules under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

The Modi government wants to grant Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- who had come to India till December 31, 2014.

The CAA was passed by the Parliament on December 11, 2019, and the presidential nod was received the next day. Subsequently, it was notified by the home ministry.

However, the law is yet to be implemented as rules under the CAA are yet to be framed. Rules under a law have to be framed for its implementation.

According to the Manual on Parliamentary Work, the rules for any legislation should have been framed within six months of presidential assent or seek an extension from the Committees on Subordinate Legislation in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

In January 2020, the home ministry notified that the Act would come into force from January 10, 2020, but it later requested the parliamentary committees in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha to give it some more time to implement rules as the country was going through its worst ever health crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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