Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003

Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003
Parliament of India
  • A bill further to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955
CitationAct No. 6 of 2004
Passed byRajya Sabha
Passed18 December 2003 (2003-12-18)
Passed byLok Sabha
Passed22 December 2003 (2003-12-22)
Assented to7 January 2004 (2004-01-07)
Signed byPresident of India
Effective3 December 2004 (2004-12-03)[1]
Legislative history
First chamber: Rajya Sabha
Bill titleCitizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2003
Bill citationBill No. 39 of 2003
Introduced byL. K. Advani
Minister of Home Affairs
Introduced7 May 2003 (2003-05-07)
Amends
Citizenship Act, 1955
Status: In force

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 was passed by the Parliament of India in December 2003,[2] and received presidential assent in January 2004.[3] It is labelled "Act 6 of 2004".[3]

The Act amended The Citizenship Act, 1955 by:

  • introducing and defining a notion of "illegal migrant",[4][5][6] who could be jailed or deported.[7]
  • making illegal immigrants ineligible for citizenship by registration or by naturalisation,[8][9][10][11]
  • disallowing citizenship by birth for children born in India if either parent is an illegal immigrant,[12][13][14] and
  • introducing a notion of Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) for citizens of other countries who are of Indian origin.[15][16]

The Act also mandated the Government of India to construct and maintain a National Register of Citizens.[17]

Scholar Anupama Roy described this amendment as a "hinge point" from which emerged the two contradictory tendencies represented by the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 (eventually to be an Act in 2019) and the National Register of Citizens.[18] These two developments gave rise to large-scale protests all over India in December 2019.

  1. ^ "S.O.1325" (PDF). 3 December 2004.
  2. ^ Naujoks (2014), p. 23.
  3. ^ a b Universal (2004), p. 2.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Roy illegal migrant was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Sinharay illegal migrant was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Universal (2004), Chapter on Citizenship (Amendent) Act, 2003, p. 2, item 2(i).
  7. ^ "Citizenship Amendment Bill: India's new 'anti-Muslim' law explained". BBC News. 11 December 2019. Archived from the original on 12 December 2019.
  8. ^ Poddar (2018), p. 109.
  9. ^ Universal (2004), Chapter on Citizenship (Amendent) Act, 2003, p. 2–3, item 3; p. 5, item 6.
  10. ^ Universal (2004), Chapter on Citizenship Act, 1955, p. 15, item 5; p. 16, item 6.
  11. ^ Citizenship soon for those who fled religious persecution, The Hindu, 5 August 2015.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Roy birth was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference Sinharay birth was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Universal (2004), Chapter on Citizenship (Amendent) Act, 2003, p. 13–14, item 3.
  15. ^ Roy (2010), pp. 138–139.
  16. ^ Universal (2004), Chapter on Citizenship (Amendent) Act, 2003, p. 2, item 2(ii).
  17. ^ Roy (2019), p. 29: "Section 14A made the registration of all citizens of India, issue of national identity cards, the maintenance of a national population register, and the establishment of the NRC by the central government, compulsory."
  18. ^ Roy (2019), p. 29: "The contemporary assemblage of citizenship space, dominated by the CAB and National Register of Citizens (NRC), may be seen as one where disparate and, indeed, adversarial political tendencies have coincided and become conjoined in their particularistic articulation of citizenship. The 2003 amendment, I argue, provided the hinge point from which these contradictory tendencies, represented by the NRC and CAB, emerged."