Assam explores options to submit NRC reverification plea in SC

Guwahati: The Assam government is exploring legal options for submitting its plea on reverification of names in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) again in the Supreme Court. The court, which is monitoring the NRC updation, had earlier rejected the plea of Assam and central governments for conducting 20% sample re-verification of the draft NRC published on July 30, 2018, in districts bordering Bangladesh.

A senior Assam government official told ET on condition of anonymity: “We have thrice moved the Supreme Court seeking reverification. However, the court neither rejected nor accepted our plea. Since March, the functioning of the court has been affected owing to Covid-19. We are exploring options and as the situation normalises we will see what can be done about it.”

The final NRC list published in August last year had found more than 31.1 million people eligible to be included in the registry while leaving out more than 1.9 million people. Dissatisfied with the outcome of the final NRC, the state government again moved the Supreme Court with a plea for re-verification.

NRC is an exercise to weed out illegal immigrants.

The Supreme Court had earlier said: “Having pursued the same we are of the view that the court should consider the necessity of carrying out sample reverification of at least 10% of the names included in the final draft NRC, if required, by a team of NRC Seva Kendra personnel from neighbouring districts.”

Former NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela then told the court that 27% re-verifications had been done during the claims and objections process. “The additional draft exclusions list was published on June 26, 2019, which took into account the results of such re-verification,” he said, referring to the disposal of claims of 102,462 people excluded through additional draft exclusions list.