Details on CAA beneficiaries not readily available, says Union Home Ministry

In a reply to an RTI application filed by The Hindu, the Ministry said that the Central Public Information Officer “is not required to create or compile the information for supplying to the applicant under the RTI Act, 2005.”

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has said the information on applicants who became Indian citizens under the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) is not readily available.

The MHA, while responding to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by The Hindu, said that “only readily available information may be provided.”

The reply, dated October 3, added that the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) “is not required to create or compile the information for supplying to the applicant under the RTI Act, 2005.”

The MHA stated this as the RTI application sought to know the total number of applications received on the portal indiancitizenshiponline.nic.in, total number of persons who received citizenship under CAA and the number of applications that are pending.

Also read: India’s citizenship laws: The Constituent Assembly dilemma

Earlier, on April 15, in response to another RTI application, the MHA had said that it did not have the provision to maintain the record of applications received under CAA.

Responding to an RTI plea by Maharashtra resident Ajay Bose regarding the total number of CAA applications, the MHA had said that “the records are not being maintained as desired by you because the Citizenship Act, 1955 and Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and the rules made there under do not have the provision to maintain the records of citizenship application received. Further, as per the RTI Act, 2005, CPIO is not authorised to create information. Hence the information sought may be treated as NIL.”

Days before the 2024 general elections were announced, the MHA on March 11 notified the CAA Rules, which enabled the implementation of CAA, four years after it was passed on December 11, 2019, by the Parliament.

The CAA enables citizenship to undocumented migrants belonging to six non-Muslim communities — Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who entered India on or before December 31, 2014, and reduces the period to qualify for citizenship from the existing 11 years to five years.

The exact number of beneficiaries under CAA is not known. While discussing the legislation in the Rajya Sabha on December 11, 2019, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that “lakhs and crores” of people would benefit from the law. However, Director, Intelligence Bureau, had deposed before a parliamentary committee that around 31,000 people would be the immediate beneficiaries.

“As per our records, there are 31,313 persons belonging to minority communities (Hindus - 25447, Sikhs - 5807, Christians - 55, Buddhists - 2 and Parsis - 2) who have been given long term visa on the basis of their claim of religious persecution in their respective countries and want Indian Citizenship. Hence, these persons will be immediate beneficiaries,” a joint parliamentary panel report quoted the IB official in a report tabled on January 7, 2019.

Published - October 10, 2024 07:39 pm IST