'MHA does not have country-wise list of people granted citizenship'

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) does not maintain a country-wise or religion-wise list of people who were granted Indian citizenship, a response to an RTI revealed.

Jatin Desai, the man credited for bringing back Mumbaikar Hamid Ansari from Pakistani Jail, in an RTI had sought specific information on how many Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Afghanis have been given citizenship since 2014 to October 2018.

Desai in the RTI had also sought two other information. The first was how many applications for Indian citizenship have been denied in these years. The reply for this was there is no provision under citizenship Act, 1955 to maintain such record, and hence the information be treated as nil.

Desai had further asked, how many Pakistanis are living in India on long-term visa. The MHA replied that as the subject matter is closely connected with Foreigners Division, the query is being forwarded to Dir (f) and CPIO Foreigners Division.

Desai received the reply on December 21.

The response, however, came after the same ministry in a reply to a question in the Lok Sabha had given out numbers of people granted citizenship in the last three years, but it did not include any specific information about the applicant's country of origin.

Kiren Rijiju, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, in his reply in Parliament stated the number of persons who have been granted Indian Citizenship during last 3 years as under (as per online data). In 2015, 605 people were granted citizenship. In 2016, 1106 were granted citizenship, in 2017, 816 were granted citizenship. The information is also available on the ministry's website.

Jatin Desai said, "My RTI was in the background of Citizenship Bill; if passed it will allow six minorities from these three countries to be given citizenship. There is an apprehension among certain Northeast states that if citizenship is granted to applicants then the political demographics might change, thus impacting existing residents. Hence, I filed the RTI to seek these details."

Not only this, but the minister's reply also spoke about delegation of power of Central Government to grant citizenship to legal migrants belonging to six minority communities namely Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh to District Collectors of 16 Districts and Home Secretaries of 7 States has been extended till further orders to facilitate persons of these minority communities.

Meanwhile, all citizenship applications submitted on or after October 1, 2018 the complete process of submission of the applications, their processing at the District, State and Central Government level, has been made completely online.

Till now as per the MHA reply in the Lok Sabha, 905 applications are pending for citizenship. Maximum number of applications pending for citizenship is in Maharashtra which stands at 162, followed by Gujarat where 125 are waiting for citizenship. In Uttar Pradesh the number is 86, while in Haryana it is at 112, in West Bengal it is 52, and in Rajasthan it stands at 18.

A detailed email sent to Rijiju and even a text message didn't solicit any response.

RTI on Citizenship

Jatin Desai had filed RTI in the backdrop of the Citizenship Bill. He said there was apprehension among some NE states that it may change the political demography.