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Applicants seeking Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 will have to declare whether they hold a valid or an expired passport from Bangladesh, Afghanistan or Pakistan, according to The Hindu.
In a notification following an amendment to Citizenship Rules, 2009, the Indian government said: “The applicant should not be in possession of a valid and/or expired passport issued by the governments of Bangladesh, Afghanistan or Pakistan.”
If the applicant carries an active passport, the person will have to submit the passport number and other details including date and place of issuance and date of expiry, the notification read.
Additionally, they will also have to surrender their valid or expired passport to the concerned postal officials within 15 days of approval of the citizenship application, it added.
The changes are inserted in a paragraph of “Schedule 1C” of the citizenship rules.
The move comes days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed power in West Bengal for the first time, home to a large number of Matua people, reported The Hindu, describing them as “the intended beneficiaries of the CAA”.
Most of the Matuas, who migrated from Bangladesh during different periods, have very few documents to apply for citizenship under the CAA which became effective on Mar 11, 2024.
The CAA also enables local priests or a “locally reputed community institution” to issue the mandatory certificates certifying the faith of an applicant, added the report.
The law facilitates citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Jain, Buddhist and Christian from the three countries who entered India before Dec 31, 2014.
Before the assembly elections were declared in West Bengal, the central government in February and March notified four committees to clear the citizenship applications.
Though the legislation was meant for undocumented migrants, the rules mentioned several documents to be provided by the applicants.