New Delhi: A total of 31 District magistrates and home secretaries of nine states can now grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
The nine states where Indian citizenship is given under the Citizenship Act, 1955 to non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra.
However, officials of Assam and West Bengal have not been given the powers so far to grant citizenship to non-Muslim minorities from the three neighbouring countries.
According to the annual report of the Ministry of Home Affairs for 2021-22, between April 1 to December 31, 2021, a total of 1,414 non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan were granted citizenship under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
Interestingly, the non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan are being granted citizenship under the Citizenship Act , 1955, and not under the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
Though the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed in December 2019, the Narendra Modi-led government could not implement it as the rules are yet to be framed.
The BJP-led NDA had passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 to grant citizenship to ‘persecuted’ non-Muslim minorities from the three neighbouring countries.
The Ministry of Home Affairs granted permission to 13 more district magistrates and the home secretaries of two more states in 2021-22. And, the district magistrates of Gujarat’s Anand and Mehsana were given similar powers last month.
