India has a quasi-federal Constitution. Powers to legislate on various matters are divided between the Parliament (i.e., the Centre) and the State Legislatures. Distribution of legislative powers is laid down in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution.
Entry 17 in the Union List (List 1) of the Seventh Schedule to the Indian Constitution is as under:
“17. Citizenship, naturalisation and aliens.”
Therefore, the power to make laws on matters relating to citizenship is exclusively with the Parliament.
State Legislatures have NO power to make laws on matters relating to citizenship.
Now, CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) is a law on matters relating to citizenship which has been passed by the Parliament of India. It allows grant of citizenship to certain refugees from 3 neighbouring countries, subject of fulfilling certain conditions.
As mentioned above, the States have no powers on this matter. State Governments or the State Legislatures have no powers in this regard.
Once the Parliament has enacted a valid law (CAA) on this matter, it is binding on all authorities. The state governments have no power to reject CAA.
If certain state governments are still making some contrary statements in this regard, they are basically political statements, and have no validity in law.
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