On 11th March, the Government of India notified the rules for the Citizen Amendment Act. Hours later, “journalist” Arvind Gunasekar, who is a JNU alumnus, targeted the central government’s over-representation of the state in the “Empowered Committee”. Claiming the rule for the committee was against “federalism” he wrote, “Look at the composition of State / UT level ‘Empowered Committee’ which will scrutinise the applications and grant Citizenship under CAA, 2019. Lopsided, five representatives of the Centre Govt. Just one representative of the State Govt. Long live federalism!!” Interestingly, Gunasekar forgot that the constitution of India gives the Central Government power to give citizenship, not the state.
According to the order issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs regarding the CAA Rules, there will be an Empowered Committee in every state and union territory headed by the Director (Census Operations) of the concerned state or UT. The committee will have an officer in the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau with the minimum rank of Deputy Secretary to the Government of India, jurisdictional Foreigners Regional Registration Officer, State Informatics Officer of national Informatics Centre of the State or UT, Post Master General of the State or UT or a Postal Officer nominated by the Post Master General, a representative from the office of Principal Secretary (Home) of Additional Chief Secretary (Home) of the state or UT and representative of jurisdictional Divisional Railway Manager of Railways. Out of these six members, only one is from the state or UT government and the rest are from the Central Government.
The power to give citizenship is with the Central Government
The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India deals with the division of powers between the Union government and State governments. It says that the Citizenship, Naturalisation and Aliens fall under the Union List. That means, only the Central Government has the power to give citizenship to any person seeking refuge in the country. This is the reason CAA was notified by the Home Ministry of the Government of India and the applicants can apply using a dedicated portal for applying for citizenship under the Union Home Ministry.
Arvind Gunasekar, who claims to be a journalist, failed to do the courtesy check and find out who has the power to grant citizenship before spreading misleading information about CAA Rules. The aim, however, is to spread disinformation about the CAA and cast aspersions on the intentions of the Central Government over the new law that seeks to fast track citizenship application for persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.