Indian Citizen Act

Indian Citizen Act of 2019

Apart from that one question, all other questions are discussed in The Citizenship Act  And recognizing by Marks perspective or exam purpose, for the citizenship issue, The Citizenship Act is more important than the Constitution for exam purposes.

 So basically this act tells about 5 ways of Acquisition and 3 ways of Loss. 

The 5 ways of Acquisition is Birth, Descent, Registration, Incorporation of territory and Naturalization  And the 3 ways of Loss are  Renunciation, Termination, and Deprivation  these 3 ways of loss are very simple and easy, the important part is the 5 ways of Acquisition  and the process of Naturalisation is very important.

 The Amendment Act of 2019 is only important then it is not like that  The citizenship amendment act incorporates many and major amendment acts  in which very important acts of the year 1986, 1992 2003, and the 2005 amendment acts.

This amendment acts  so before 1986 the act says that if any person takes birth in India he will be liable to get Indian Citizenship  but 1986 act changed this provision and it said that  the person birth should be in India but as well as his/her one parent should be an Indian to acquire Indian Citizenship.

Before 1992 it was like that if anybody wants Indian Citizenship  then his/her father should be an Indian citizen and mother has no role in it  Amendment act of 1992 ended this discrimination against women  and said that child's either of the parents should be an Indian Citizen it could be mother or it could be father  And the act of 2003,

the definition of Illegal Immigration  was introduced in this act only  Because of this term and Illegal Immigrant, the amendment act of 2019 was in mess. The amendment act of 2003 stopped the Illegal Immigrants acquiring Indian Citizenship by the process of registration and naturalization,  and the act of 2005 known for its major changes in the provision of OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) 

The importance of these all amendment acts through section wise. The first mode of Acquisition is Citizenship by Birth  which is section 3  this section offers citizenship on the basis of birth  and the very important ingredient of this section is that your birth should take place in India  so now we will see how this section developed from time to time  So firstly this the section said that in the timeline ( 26 Jan 1950 - 1st July 1987)  whose ever birth is taking place in India will automatically get Indian Citizenship  it doesn't matter that his/her parents are Indians or non-Indians But this happened till 1987 only  Why?  because around this time we realized that the countries which our neighbor  their citizens means the refugees and the illegal immigrants who are coming to India  while this time if their child takes place in India then they are automatically eligible for Indian Citizenship  which is a problematic issue.

That’s why after the amendment act of 1986, this new timeline was set (1st Jul 1987 - 3rd Dec 2003)  and said that according to this new timeline whose ever is taking birth in India will get citizenship if their 1 parent is an Indian  but by this act the problem was not getting solved. And the new act was introduced in 2003  which finally set this, that if anybody is taking birth in India after 3rd Dec 2003  will get Indian Citizenship when his/her both parents are Indian  or at least his/her any one parent must be an Indian and another parent should not be an Illegal Immigrant now what Illegal Immigrant means.

The section 21B of the Citizenship act defines Illegal Immigrant It says that if any traveler comes to India without any valid passport and any valid travel document or if he is having a valid passport but he has exceeded the permitted time limit to stay in India If he or she  is engaged in all that, then they will be called as Illegal Immigrants.  Currently the law of the land is this only.

If your birthplace is India and both parents are Indian  or one of the parents is Indian and the other one is not an Illegal Immigrant then you will get Citizenship by birth  Next is Citizenship by DESCENT which is section 4  DESCENT means by your parents or grandparents your relation to any country  so section 4 says that if anyone is taking birth outside India  then also he/she can acquire Indian Citizenship by the help of their DESCENT

 In section 4 also there have been many changes from time to time like firstly this section said that  after 26th Jan 1950, whoever is taking birth  outside India, they can get Indian citizenship if  his/her father is an Indian citizen, so by the reason of his father they were getting Indian Citizenship  but this was till 10th Dec 1992 because after that the amendment act of 1992 came into existence which says about gender neutrality. So this amendment act tells that  after 10th Dec 1992 whichever person has taken birth outside India  he/she can also get Indian Citizenship if one of his parent is Indian citizen weather it is mother or father  So after this amendment because of their father or mother being Indian citizen he/she could get Indian Citizenship 

But this was all till 3rd Dec 2004 only  Because after that the amendment which came and the current running law says that  if after 3rd Dec 2004 if any one's birthplace is outside India then they will not get Indian citizenship as before  under 1 year of that child's birth their parents should go to that country's Indian Consulate  and should register their child as Indian Citizen  by this undertaking that their child who is a minor doesn't has any other country's passport  and currently this law only applies, So this was about section 4.

So now by birth and DESCENT very limited people were able to acquire Indian Citizenship  So that's why to widen up the process of Indian citizenship Section 5 has been introduced  Which is a registration process, which  specifies some peoples categories  and it says that the particular categories people if they can submit  an application to the central government  So they can also be registered as Indian Citizens  For understanding about section 5 it is very important to understand this term  PIO  Means Persons of Indian Origin  (PIO) are those people whose birth or whose parents birth  took place in undivided India means in British India  or whose parents birth has been on that  territory of India which has been included after 15 Aug 1947  like Sikkim and Pondicherry were part of India after the Independence  So all those people will be Persons of Indian Origin (POI) 

Under these categories  such person who is residing in India since the last 7 years before making an application for registration  or such person of Indian origin who is residing outside India  or such persons who are married to Indian Citizen  or the minor children of Indian citizens  and a person of full age and capacity who is residing in any commonwealth country or in the Republic of Ireland 

the next is the important mode of acquisition which is naturalization which is section 6  this the section says that the persons who have these all qualifications  and if that person could submit an application to the central government for the registration of Indian Citizenship  then the central government can register his/her citizenship  So let's know what are the qualifications for that  firstly he should not be subject of that country where Indians are prevented from being a citizen  means he should not be a part of that country where Indians are prevented in that country for being a citizen 

Secondly, if he already acquires other country citizenship  then he has to renounce  that citizenship for acquiring Indian citizenship  and from the date of the application he should be residing in India for the past 12 months  or should involve with service in government of India  means before applying he should be residing in India for the last 12 months or should be doing any government service  if he is fulfilling partly of that condition it is also permissible  before date of application what should be done is given above  but before that 12 months during the period of 14 years he should be residing in India  or performing government service  so in that 14 years for an aggregate of 11 years, he should do this(Residing India/GOI)  in this also if he fulfills partly one condition it also permissible 

Next is He should be of good character  and he should have adequate knowledge of the languages which are prescribed in schedule 8  after that if he has been granted the certificate of naturalization then he should intend to reside in India  means after getting the certificate of naturalization, his intention should be to live in India  along with this government of India has the power to wave off all this qualifications  only if any person has performed distinguished service in the field of  Science, Art, Philosophy, Literature, Peace, Human Rights  So if any person has performed distinguished service in these fields than for that person government of India can wave off any condition or a whole qualification  so this was the naturalization process which is section 6 and is very important

 Next process is Incorporation by Territory which is section 7. This provision says that if any the foreign territory becomes the part of India  then government of India will specify that who will know as Indian citizens of that foreign territory  like when Pondicherry became the part of India, then the government of India issued an order to tell that  who all be qualified to become Indian citizens.