CAA Rules Eased to Allow Applicants To Use Any Document To Establish Their Roots In Bangladesh, Pakistan, Or Afghanistan

To make the application process easier for those applying for Indian citizenship from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has taken an important step.

Earlier, the applicants were required to submit any document mentioned in the list of nine documents in Schedule 1A of the Act to apply for citizenship, which has now been expanded to any document issued by any authority of those countries.

An "etc." (et cetera) has been included in the order, allowing government officials some discretion when handling CAA applications with potential document deficiencies.

Additionally, the CAA Rules permit local priests or a "locally reputed community institution" to provide the required certificates verifying an applicant's faith, The Hindu reported.

The MHA emphasised, "CAA is a facilitative law and its spirit has to be understood while processing the applications," in its communication with other departments like the Directorate of Census, postal department and railways.

Land records, judicial orders, etc. are also allowed in the process of identification of the applicant or their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents as a national of Afghanistan or Bangladesh or Pakistan.

The order comes in response to numerous queries requesting clarification as to what type of documents may be accepted from the applicants against Sr. No. 8 of Schedule IA of the Citizenship Rules 2024.

The amendment will mostly help around 2.8 crore people from the Matua and Namasudra communities in West Bengal, while Schedule 1A was not a problem for Hindu migrants from Pakistan as they entered with valid documents.