Final Assam NRC still to come out, claims coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma

GUWAHATI: Hitesh Dev Sarma, the coordinator of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) said in an affidavit to the high court published in August last year was only a “supplementary list” and the final document is yet to come out. In the “supplementary list” of the Assam NRC, over 10,000 names were either wrongly included or excluded and necessary orders have been issued to delete nearly 4,800 “ineligible persons” from the document, Sarma added.

“...the Supplementary NRC was already published by the LRCPs on 31st August 2019, but the final National Register of Citizens is yet to be published by the Registrar General of India as per Clause 7 of the Schedule of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003,” the affidavit stated.

A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants in the Assam NRC draft that was published last year. 19,06,657 persons were excluded from the list.

According to reports, the affidavit was submitted by Sarma as per an order by the Gauhati High Court concerning a writ petition by one Rahima Begam against a Nalbari district Foreigners’ Tribunal order, declaring her a foreigner.

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Sarma in his affidavit further stated that District Registrar of Citizens Registers (DRCRs) formally requested the NRC State Coordinator to “change results” of NRC with “proper reasons”

“Altogether 10,199 numbers of formal requests were received from DRCRs to change the results of NRC. Out of 10,199 persons, a total of 5,404 numbers were for changing the result from ‘Reject’ to ‘Accept’ and a total of 4,795 numbers were for changing result from ‘Accept’ to ‘Reject’, ” he said.

Out of the wrongly included persons, 1,032 belonged to Declared Foreigners (DF), Doubtful Voters (DV), persons having cases pending at Foreigners Tribunals (PFT) and their descendants, Sarma stated adding that there are another 3,763 persons who were found ineligible for other reasons and they are still included in the NRC.

As per the rules of the NRC, the names of the persons belonging to the three categories cannot be included in the historical document along with their descendants.

Sarma said instructions have been issued to all DRCRs on October 13 this year to issue “speaking orders” for deletion of “names of ineligible persons” who were reportedly included due to data entry errors.

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