To,
Hon’ble President of India
Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi
Subject: To Revoke Citizenship Amendment Act
Respected Sir,
This to bring to your kind notice that the recently enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) & announcement to start the process of National Population Register (NPR) has created much distress among the citizens of our country. Nationwide uprisings in the form of protests against CAA-NRC-NPR package is a reflection of the same, raising serious questions about its constitutional validity.
Even though the central government argues that the newly enacted CAA-2019 is to help persecuted refugees of neighboring countries by granting them the citizenship but the argument stands vindicated considering the series of infamous statements made by Hon’ble Home Minister of India, Mr Amit Shah that the chronology to be followed before implementation of nationwide NRIC is to enact CAA so that all other communities except Muslims can avail citizenship through this amendment to existing Citizenship Act if their name is missed out in NRIC.
Further, by enacting an amendment to existing citizenship laws based on religious identity, CAA goes against Articles 5, 10, 14 and 15 of the Indian Constitution which guarantees equality before law and protection against any discrimination based on religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them. Hence, we demand that this unconstitutional CAA-2019 must be scrapped.
Secondly, even though the MOS for Home minister made a statement in Parliament that decision on nationwide NRIC is not yet discussed in cabinet and till now there are no plans to implement nationwide NRIC but the backdoor strategy of implementing the same through recent announcement to start the process of National Population Register (NPR) – a listing of all persons ordinarily resident in India, is a serious concern. While the process of preparing NPR is being carried out by the same department which prepares the census, it has a completely different legal basis and purpose as mentioned in the official home ministry notification which claimed that the NPR is the first step towards making NRIC. The Government of India issued a notification on 31st July 2019 stating that the NPR preparation exercise will be done from April – September 2020 according to the Citizenship Rules 2003.
Considering the practical experiences of difficulties faced by citizens in Assam during the preparation of NRC in Assam, we demand to drop the plans of implementing nationwide NRIC, as it goes against the core constitutional right of “Dignified life” as guaranteed by our Constitution. Since NPR is also the part of the same plan, we demand to immediately stop the process of starting NPR as well.
Also, the mass uprising in the form of peaceful protest is met with excessive & brute use of police force injuring many people including women & children. Serious & immediate action must be taken on the police personals responsible for the same and Judicial enquiry must be ordered in all these instances of police violence. Summarising the above, I humbly demand your kind office to consider following demands:
• Revoke Discriminatory & Unconstitutional Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) – 2019. Ask the central government to drop the plan to implement a nationwide National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC).
• Immediately stop the process of National Population Register (NPR).
• To order Judicial enquiry into all the instances of Police violence on protestors during Anti-CAA-NRC-NPR Protests nationwide, complete the enquiry in a time-bound manner & punish the culprit police personnel involved.
Hope your kind office will do the needful.
Regards. Abdul hafiz lakhani. Ahmedabad. Gujarat Editor Gujarat siyasat & www.siyasat.net
