Amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955 - Bill Passes in Rajya Sabha

The controversial 6th amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955 which was tabled by the Hon'ble Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah and passed by the House of Commons on 9th December saw its way through the Upper House with 125 green flags and 105 red ones. 

 

Despite number of protests and exhibitions against the bill, the mighty mooting party, BJP found the ball in its court at the dawn of 11th Dec 2019.

 

The validity of the bill was challenged on the premise that it is ultra vires with Article 14 Constitution of India in the sense that it discriminated against the Muslim refugees seeking shelter in the Indian territory. The bill proposes to provide relief to refugees of 6 religions - Hindus, Jains, Christians, Parsis, Sikhs and Buddhists from only three countries - Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, expressly excluding the Muslim community because "Muslim community is not oppressed in the neighbouring Muslim communities". 

 

Where the proposers justified this step on the grounds of economic and security concerns, the opposition is calling it "the second partition of India", "stunt to butter up West Bengal before the poll" and "religious politics".

The refugees will have to prove that they fled their country due to persecution owing to their affiliation with their respective religions. The government justified its action taking security reasons.