A Critical Analysis of the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019

Citizenship is a dynamic concept, which changes with the social, political, economic, geographical as well as climatic changes. Therefore, the change in the law of citizenship is always attracting importance in the discourse of law. Relating to the Indian perspective, the Constitution of India provides a basic framework with regard to the peculiar situation prevailing at the time of commencement of the Constitution. The constitution was drafted at a time which witnessed the independence of the country which gave birth of two nation India and Pakistan on the basis of religion. The situation of turmoil of migration of people from one part to another part of the newly born countries on the consideration of religion had been prevailing in that time. This situation and other usual situations are addressed by the Constitution. However the Constitution under article 11 empowers the parliament to make laws on citizenship to address the issue of citizenship which arises thereafter. Accordingly the Citizenship Act 1955 was enacted by the Parliament which not only defines Indian citizenship but at the same time discuss the ground of termination, renunciation and deprivation of the same. The Citizenship Act 1955 has brought certain new changes by the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019. This amendment has caught serious controversy because of the reason that it considers citizenship on religious basis which is against the secular fabric of our Constitution. But the analysis of the controversy of 2019 amendment is not the objective of this paper, rather this paper focus on the analysis of the newly inserted provisions in the amendment. The amendment provided for citizenship to the people coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh belonging to the community of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, Christian and who came to India before 31st December 2014.